Inside Michelle Keegan’s rise from soap rookie to global superstar – and how her time on Corrie taught her key lesson
IN the decade since leaving Coronation Street, Michelle Keegan has become one of Britain’s best-loved actresses.
But now, her latest show has turned her into a GLOBAL star.
Netflix thriller Fool Me Once, which came out this month, has been viewed 37million times in countries around the world and marks the pinnacle of her career so far.
But unlike some leading ladies who started out on soaps, Michelle, 36, does not try to forget her past — she proudly uses it to help her career.
She said: “I’m naturally disciplined but I think that’s come from being in a soap.
“I think there’s a lot of snobbery surrounding soaps.
“For me, it’s the best learning platform you can ever do as an actor.
“I remember we were filming three different storylines at one time, with three different directors, not in chronological order, going back and forward.
“Being in a soap, it’s so fast-paced you have to be on your game.
“I was working with the likes of Barbara Knox (Rita Tanner) and Bill Roache (Ken Barlow), so you have to know your stuff and be on it.
“I feel like that discipline I learnt from soaps at such a young age I sort of carried that through my career.
“So when I go on set I know exactly what I’m saying and doing.”
Fool Me Once sees Michelle play former army officer Maya Stern.
Her husband Joe, played by Richard Armitage, is killed by gunmen when a robbery goes wrong — but then mysteriously reappears.
The eight-parter, which also stars Joanna Lumley as Maya’s mother-in-law, has been one of Netflix’s biggest hits.
It has topped the streamer’s English TV List and reached the Top 10 in 91 different countries.
It has also eclipsed Netflix’s other huge hits, including The Crown and Ricky Gervais: Armageddon.
As with many of her roles, Stockport-born Michelle, who is married to former Towie star Mark Wright, 36, has kept her northern accent, as well as her no-nonsense style and sexy look.
They are characteristics viewers first got to see when she began playing Tina McIntyre on Corrie in 2008.
In the six years she was on the ITV soap she became one of its most popular characters — and seemed destined to go on to bigger things.
There was already a well-trodden path to success forged by the likes of Suranne Jones, who went on to Doctor Foster, Katherine Kelly (Mr Selfridge) and Sarah Lancashire (Happy Valley).
Michelle told Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast: “I came into this industry quite late, I was 19 when I started in Corrie, and I went to the audition purely as an experience.
“I never thought in a million years I’d get it.
“So, for me, I feel lucky when I get any job.
“When the job doesn’t come in, or it’s a no, I think, ‘Well, that job wasn’t for me’. And I move on.
“I don’t take it as a personal attack, thank God.”
Fortunately, there were plenty of offers to keep her busy from the moment she left Corrie in a sensational storyline that saw her character Tina beaten to death with a lead pipe in 2014.
That finale meant there was no chance of returning to the soap.
Michelle said: “I did panic and think, ‘What if I don’t work again? They’re killing Tina, what am I going to do?’.
“But Julie Hesmondhalgh, who played Hayley Cropper, was leaving about the same time as me.
“She said, ‘Killing Tina is the best thing they could have ever done, because they’ve taken that security blanket away and you have to really push hard now and work hard’.”
Within months, she was filming BBC One drama series Ordinary Lies, and from 2016 to 2020 she starred in military thriller Our Girl, on the same channel.
In 2019, she moved into comedy, starring in Sky’s hugely successful Brassic, which counts Dominic West and Imelda Staunton among its guest stars.
Last year she returned to serious drama with the BBC’s Ten Pound Poms, telling the story of Brits who emigrated to Australia at the end of World War Two.
Many of her big projects have seen her work with writer Danny Brocklehurst, who adapted Fool Me Once for Netflix.
He was particularly thrilled when Michelle decided to make the leap into comedy to play Erin in Brassic, his sitcom about a group of wayward blokes in a down-at-heel northern town.
He said: “I’ve spent my career putting working-class characters on screen because I think they need to be represented.
“I was delighted when Michelle joined the show.
“What I love about Erin is she adds some rootedness in amongst the fun chaos.
“I think that’s what we wanted Michelle to do, too.
“She brings just the right feel to Erin.
“She’s very much one of the lads off screen, too.”
‘I always have that slight panic’
Michelle has another, secret, project in the pipeline for 2024, but despite her success, she always fears every job will be her last.
She said: “I will be going away again in February for work which will take me through to the summer.
“It is exciting but I also still have the fear and I suffer a lot with imposter syndrome.
“So I will be doing a job and as soon as I wrap on that job, I’m like, ‘Right, well I’m never going to work again!’.
“You know, that was good while it lasted. So I always have that slight panic.
“I come from a very normal working-class background, my family and friends aren’t in the industry at all.
“I’d never met anyone in the industry until I was in Corrie.
“Even when I was there I was just like, ‘I’m gonna get found out, I shouldn’t be here, someone else should have had this job’.”
She added: “As I’ve grown up in the industry I have become a lot stronger now.”
Michelle has also learned to keep her work and personal life separate — and she uses her working-class background in the North West as a balancing influence.
She said: “I have down days, hard days and days where I don’t feel my best.
“For me, I have a good foundation around me, I have a good set of mates around me I’ve known from school and if I feel low I speak to them.
“I’ve got my mum there and I’m very close to my brother and I haven’t married the industry, do you know what I mean?
“I can have a foot in the industry, but as soon as I’m out, I’m at home and I’m back to normal Michelle.
“It’s like, I had a premiere to go to today, I was dressed up, but as soon as that was over I was like, ‘Right, tracksuit on and into my comfy bra’. Sexy!
“But I needed to feel myself again. A few years ago I probably wouldn’t have done that, I probably would have stayed a bit more glammed-up.
“Over the years I’ve learned what’s important to me, and I’m happy where I am right now.”
- Fool Me Once is on Netflix now.