Brooke Vincent tells Soaplife she’s happy to be back in Corrie…but can’t guarantee she’s back for good!
Last year, when Brooke Vincent took time out from the Street to appear in the stage play Be My Baby, she was worried. “To begin with, I had real fears about being on stage, when you get just one chance and one chance only,” she told Soaplife. “I had to face those fears and also I had to concentrate so hard – not easy when I have the attention span of a goldfish! I hope my experience in the theatre has made me a better actress. I did enjoy it while it lasted but I’m very happy to be back on Corrie.”
We’re loving the sister stuff with Sophie and Rosie Webster! “It’s been good – we’ve been messing about! Helen [Flanagan, who plays Rosie] and I have known each other for a very long time so it’s good fun and we have loads of laughs. We have the same sense of humour. She finds me funny and I find her funny.”
Has Helen changed much? “She’s always been very warm and lovely but she has come back with a lot of mummy stories about [her daughter] Matilda, which is really nice. We stayed in touch but didn’t always see very much of each other.”
You’ve been in Corrie since you were 11… Are you now more used to being in the public eye? “Yes, but you never get totally used to it. There are times when you want to go out with your friends and you don’t want to be pictured. It’s also annoying when people you don’t know give their opinions on stuff they know nothing about. But you’ve just got to deal with it and realise it’s part and parcel of it all.”
Are you still dating Man City footballer, Kean Bryan? “We’re still together. You’re making me go red! It’s so hard to kind of find the balance of what you say to people and what you choose to keep back. As you get older I think you learn that it’s nice to keep something for yourself. I’ve known him a while but it’s just, you know, it is what it is. That’s all what I can say!”
Is true that you’ve been fed up with the way Sophie’s lesbianism has been portrayed in Corrie? “I have been a bit! I think that just because Sophie’s a lesbian, not everything she does should be about that. It doesn’t need to be brought up or written about every time we do a scene. It’s not as if every lesbian fancies every other lesbian they meet! I’m straight and don’t fancy every boy I meet! There’s more to people than their sexuality. Our producer Kate Oates is lovely and she gets it. She says, ‘No, we don’t need to see you kissing a girl on a Thursday to know that you’re still a lesbian’.”
So are you back in Corrie for good? “This is an amazing job, I work with amazing people and it feels like I’ve come home. But I’m not as scared as I was to say that I might go off from time to time and do other things. I might be like Chris [Gascoyne, who plays Peter Barlow] and dip in and out. Working in the theatre means I’ve come back to Corrie with a different mind set and it’s made me want to better my character here.”
If you were to take time out again, what might you like to do? “I did some guest presenting for one of our local radio stations and really enjoyed it. I liked being myself, having my own input and being able to say what I wanted. It was very interesting being able to act on impulse, although I did have to watch what I said!”
Coronation Street, ITV
