Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:37 am Post subject: Coronation Street - Becky - Katherine Kelly
Monday's episode was most excellent! I loved watching Becky lose her rag. The desperation was so real, I could feel it for myself. Liz was being a real fucking twat, though I can fully understand Liz' point of view on the whole thing. It was comical yet dark in some parts. Thoroughly excellent drama IMO. I'm glad I got hooked on Corrie.
I have just now caught up and watched these episodes. A really amazing performance by the actress that plays Becky...Catherine something, I think. I have always had a soft spot for Becky. She always does the wrong thing for the right reasons. Think where that little boy would be without Becky stealing that money...Kylie probably would have lost him in Spain or traded him for beers...
Corrie blimey! Katherine Kelly is white hot as she poses as Barbarella for sci-fi inspired photoshoot
Sarah Bull
10th May 2011
Katherine Kelly hit the headlines last month when she announced she was leaving Coronation Street. But now the 31-year-old actress has found herself the centre of attention for another reason after posing for a sexy new shoot as Barbarella.
Wearing a low-cut white and black PVC leotard and matching boots, Katherine is seen staring provocatively into the camera as she reinvents the character Jane Fonda made famous in 1968. In another shot, Katherine is seen laying down on her back with a silver gun in her hands ready to shoot.
In the accompanying interview with the Radio Times, Katherine says she was slightly hesitant about leaving her role as Becky McDonald in ITV soap Coronation Street, but wants to broaden her acting horizons. She said: 'It’s a bit crazy leaving a job that’s still so brilliant. I do wonder, "Am I being a madam?" I don’t have commitments, and there are great parts I want to play. There’s no more to it than me wanting a challenge.'
However, fans of Coronation Street will be pleased to know ITV bosses are planning to keep things open for Katherine should she ever wish to return to playing Becky. In an interview on This Morning yesterday, she said: 'That was the first thing I said - 'I think I'm ready to go Phil [Corrie producer], but please don't kill me off! I'd hate to see the end of Becky I really would. I've watched Corrie all my life and I'm a viewer as much and I'd just hate that.'
And Katherine also said she is finding it difficult to cope with the thought of saying goodbye to the much-loved character. She said: 'I just said I felt ready to go this year and they are keeping me filming until December the 18th - which is our last day of filming this year! But it's been five years and the time just feels right. I’m gonna start getting all sad about it. My mum keeps going, "I don't know why you're sad about it, it's your fault, you said you want to go!"'
Explaining her decision to leave in an interview earlier this year, Katherine said: 'It's absolutely nothing to do with Coronation Street but everything to do with me. It's about there being things I want to do. I wish I could cut myself in half - one half go off and explore lots of different things and the other half stay. It's never been about money, and as for bigger and better stories, my goodness - how could you get bigger stories than those Becky has had? The fact that I have stayed so long is a testimony to the writers and the producers - they made it utterly irresistible.'
You know, I remember thinking when she came into Corrie that I didn't like her but that didn't last long. Funnily enough, I felt the same way about Fiz and Anna when they first arrived. Now I love them all. Hahaha...what am I like?
I hope Katherine goes on to do some great stuff! She's got enough talent.
My brothers laughed at my scenes with sledgehammer - physically I'm pathetic
Steve Hendry,
Sunday Mail
Jun 5 2011
CORONATION Street fans are still reeling from the one-woman wrecking spree Becky McDonald has just inflicted on the home of arch-rival Tracy Barlow with a sledgehammer. The dust has yet to settle but the damage is nothing compared to the news actress Katherine Kelly has also knocked her way through Weatherfield's exit door.
After five years of playing bad girl Becky, Katherine, 31, plans to leave although she will stay on the show until December. The long goodbye suits the actress. She said: "It's really nice because it feels like a weaning period and I need that because it is such a lovely place to work and I am going to miss everybody. If you think you are going to be here forever you can go for weeks and not see people. If I get a break in filming I might have thought I'll just ring my nan, and see, I don't know, Jane Danson, later.
"Now I think, no you won't. Go and have that cup of tea in the canteen together because I'm not going to be here in seven months. When you hand in your notice, you don't usually get the chance to have those conversations. I'm grateful for that opportunity. I'm leaving for no more than the change."
Her upcoming departure has been big news, somewhat ironic given she slipped in under the radar. She was only signed for a three-month bit part but turned it into a starring role as the former drug addict and jailbird who turned her life around with the help of Roy and Hayley Cropper. She moved centre stage when she romanced and married show stalwart Steve McDonald, played by Simon Gregson. Her performance has drawn critical acclaim and high praise from Tony Warren, the show's creator, who during last year's 50th anniversary celebrations likened her to one of the soap's all-time greats, Pat Phoenix, who starred as the legendary Elsie Tanner.
Having grown up in Barnsley a fan of the show, she is aware of what it means to have pulled pints behind the bar of the Rovers Return and of her standing in the Street but it didn't enter her thinking when it came to quitting. She said: "It doesn't matter how iconic the character has become or not. I felt the weight of that, in a good way, for the 50th and that gave us all a chance to enjoy how iconic the show has become. When you become Mrs McDonald the third, you are going down in TV history, even if you make a pig's ear of it. It's our equivalent of marrying Prince William. But I'm just ready for a new challenge."
Before she heads off into the soap sunset there is much to be settled, not least the aftermath of her sledgehammer attack on the Barlow household. The violence erupted when she blamed Tracy (Kate Ford) - who is waging a campaign to be reunited with Steve - when social services found out she paid her scheming sister £30,000 for her baby son Max.
Katherine found shooting the scenes exhausting, partly because she was wielding a sledgehammer around, but because, in real life, she confesses to being a bit of a wimp. She said: "My brothers laugh their heads off when they see me like that. I am tough in my mind, very strong willed, but when it comes to physicality, I'm a bit pathetic. My shopping bag bangs into my shin and it bruises. So it takes a lot for me, and it always has done, to make Becky look like a street fighter. I do find those scenes full on. We totted up the hours I was hauling that sledgehammer around and it was 12 hours. My muscles are bulging."
It didn't escape her notice, though, that she was hurling the weapon around with some of Corrie's most revered figures, including William Roache and Anne Kirkbride, within striking distance. She said: "There was Ken and Deirde Barlow, Tracy and Steve. I thought to myself I've got four Coronation Street icons in this room... and they have given me a sledgehammer. You can have all the health and safety you want but I thought I better not mess this up and bash somebody. It took us six hours to shoot that scene. I did swear a few times after those takes but what a thrill. I do love all that. The further removed from me, Katherine Kelly, the more of a buzz it gives me."
The story marks the beginning of the end for Becky as she hits the selfdestruct button which sees her and Steve break up. What happens post December 18 and Coronation Street is anybody's guess but, already, she is not short of offers. Her career has been quietly stellar, having trained at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art as a teenager before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company prior to Coronation Street.
She said: "I've been so lucky. My two big jobs in my 10-year career to date have been for massive institutions, the RSC and Coronation Street. I just look for a meaty role and the writing and, for me, it doesn't matter whether it's TV, film, stage or radio. It's just if it's right."
However, she admits that the RSC and working on one of Britain's top soaps are quite different. She said: "I always say the RSC changed my career, Coronation Street changed my life. I have kept it as low key and real as I can. I never wanted people to get fed up of me. To be honest, I have been doing 13hour days for the past three years. I go to events like BAFTA and the Soap Awards but I haven't got time to go gallivanting. I'm in Weatherfield so much and spend the rest of the time catching up with family and friends."
Katherine shares an agent with James McAvoy and she is trusting her future to her. She said: "There are some lovely offers already. I've still got seven months and I don't want to take my eye off the ball. I want to give it my all and enjoy it. It's a bit of balancing act but a nice one."
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