Julie Hesmondhalgh

Julie Claire Hesmondhalgh (born 25 February 1970) is an English actress, known for her role as Hayley Cropper in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street between 1998 and 2014.[1][2] For this role, she won Best Serial Drama Performance at the 2014 National Television Awards and Best Actress at the 2014 British Soap Awards.

Julie Hesmondhalgh
Hesmondhalgh in 2008
Born	Julie Claire Hesmondhalgh 25 February 1970 Accrington, Lancashire, England
Alma mater	London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1988–present
Agent	Lou Coulson Associates
Television	Coronation Street (1998–2014) Cucumber (2015) Happy Valley (2016) Broadchurch (2017)
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Ian Kershaw
Children	2

Hesmondhalgh's other regular television roles include Cucumber (2015), Happy Valley (2016), and Broadchurch (2017). Her stage credits include God Bless the Child at the Royal Court Theatre in London (2014), and Wit at the Royal Exchange, Manchester (2016).

In 2019 Methuen Drama published her Working Diary as part of their Theatre Makers series.[3]

She is, with writer Becx Harrison and visual artist Grant Archer, co-founder of Take Back, a Manchester-based theatre collective dedicated to making script in hand rapid responses to social and political events.

Early life

Hesmondhalgh was born in Accrington, Lancashire. She applied to drama school aged 18, and studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art from 1988[4] to 1991 (one of her classmates was Benito Martinez). On finishing her training, Hesmondhalgh was a part of Arts Threshold, a small independent theatre in London, for several years, and worked with Rufus Norris in his directorial debut. In the 1990s, she appeared in such television dramas as The Bill,[5] Catherine Cookson's The Dwelling Place,[6] and in the Victoria Wood comedic television movie Pat and Margaret.[7]

Career

Television

Hesmondhalgh is best known for playing Hayley Cropper in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street.[8] Making her debut appearance on the show in January 1998, she played the first transgender character in a British soap opera.[9] She took maternity leave from the soap between 2000-01 after the birth of her first daughter. After nearly ten years on the show, Hesmondhalgh decided to take another break for a year in order to spend more time with her family. She left on 22 October 2007, but returned on 17 November 2008. On 24 December 2011, Hesmondhalgh appeared on ITV's The Cube, winning £20,000 for her Accrington-based anti-poverty charity, Maundy Relief.

Her character Hayley was involved in high-profile storylines, including one concerning a gender transition, and a hostage storyline in the Underworld factory in which Hayley and Carla Connor (Alison King) were kidnapped, bound and gagged by rogue businessman Tony Gordon, who intended to murder them, although they escaped unharmed but Tony was killed in the ensuing explosion. On 11 January 2013, ITV announced that Hesmondhalgh would be leaving Coronation Street in January 2014 after 15 years on the show, and that her character Hayley was to leave in a controversial right-to-die storyline, following a battle with pancreatic cancer.[10] She filmed her final scenes on 18 November 2013; they were broadcast on 22 January 2014, the night she won a National Television Award for Best Performance in a Serial Drama, which she shared with her longtime co-star, David Neilson. Over 10,000,000 viewers tuned in to Hayley's final episode, where she ended her life. She worked with pancreatic cancer charities to raise awareness of the disease, and was involved in a petition and attended a parliamentary debate on the subject in 2014.

On 1 May 2013, Hesmondhalgh appeared on ITV game show All Star Mr & Mrs with husband Ian, and won £20,000 for Maundy Relief.[11]

From 22 January 2015, Hesmondhalgh played the role of Cleo Whitaker in the Channel 4 drama series Cucumber, written by Russell T Davies.[12] She also appeared in the BBC Four film Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster, a television film about the murder of Sophie Lancaster. Hesmondhalgh played the role of Sophie's mother, Sylvia Lancaster, a role which she previously portrayed on stage. Hesmondhalgh is friends with Sylvia Lancaster and patron of the Sophie Lancaster Foundation. In 2015, Hesmondhalgh won a Royal Television Society Award for Best Female Actor in a Drama for her role as Sylvia.

In 2015, she appeared in an episode of the BBC drama Moving On, with Shane Richie and John Thomson, as well as the one episode of Inside No 9, written by Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith.

In 2016, Hesmondhalgh joined the cast of acclaimed drama thriller Happy Valley for its second series on BBC One. She was offered the role by creator, writer and executive producer Sally Wainwright. Hesmondhalgh's character Amanda Wadsworth, is a midwife and working mother from Yorkshire who has a fraught relationship with her husband, John (Kevin Doyle).[13]

In 2017, Hesmondhalgh played the lead role of Trish in the third and final series of Broadchurch on ITV.[14]

In 2018, she was announced as a guest star in the Doctor Who episode "Kerblam!".[15]

In 2019, she played Amanda in the first episode of the final season of Channel 4's Catastrophe with Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan.[16] In March 2019, it was announced that she would be appearing in a new six part ITV comedy drama, The Trouble with Maggie Cole, with Dawn French.[17]

In 2020, she played Heather, Joe's teacher in the third series of The A Word

Stage

From 19-29 September 2012, Hesmondhalgh appeared at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, portraying Sylvia Lancaster in Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster opposite Rachel Austin. The play was based on the real-life story of Sylvia's late daughter, Sophie Lancaster. Hesmondhalgh won a Manchester Theatre Award for Best Studio Performance in 2013.[18]

On 23 January 2014, she returned to the Royal Exchange Theatre for her first role since leaving Coronation Street, in the Simon Stephens play Blindsided, which ran until 15 February that year. From 12 November to 20 December 2014, she appeared in God Bless The Child at the Royal Court Theatre in London, directed by Vicky Featherstone, playing Mrs Bradley, with Amanda Abbington.

In June 2015, Hesmondhalgh performed a script-in-hand scratch performance of her first one-woman play, These I Love, at Gulliver's in Manchester.

In January 2016, she played Vivian Bearing, an American Professor of Poetry dying of ovarian cancer, in Margaret Edson's Wit at The Royal Exchange main stage, directed by Raz Shaw, for which she was nominated for a TMA and won a Manchester Theatre Award for Best Female Performance.

She is a founder member of a Manchester-based grassroots theatre company creating work about social issues, Take Back, which she runs with Rebekah Harrison and Grant Archer, and to which she has contributed as a writer and actor. She is a member of The Gap collective, a new writing company in Manchester and performed their first gala performance at Halle St Peters in September 2015, in a piece by her husband Ian Kershaw.

On 30 April 2017, Hesmondhalgh starred in a one-off performance at the Royal Court Theatre, of Lemn Sissay's The Report, directed by John E. McGrath.[19]

In February 2018, she starred as Renee in The Almighty Sometimes by Kendall Feaver. It was directed by Katy Rudd at the Royal Exchange.[20]

In February 2019, she performed the title role in Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht, adapted by Anna Jordan. It was directed by Amy Hodge at the Royal Exchange, Manchester.[21]

She is a supporter of Arts Emergency and a mentor with the National Youth Theatre.

Personal life

Hesmondhalgh is married to screenwriter Ian Kershaw. The couple live in Tameside with their two daughters.

Activism and fundraising

Hesmondhalgh is a Labour Party member.[22] In August 2015, she endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election. She tweeted: "Proudly supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership contest."[23] She campaigned for Corbyn as party leader in the 2017 UK general election.[22] In May 2017, speaking at Labour's general election campaign launch in Manchester, she said: "I realised the Labour party and its core values would finally be in line with my own deeply held socialist beliefs about equality, justice and peace."[24]

Hesmondhalgh is a patron of the following organisations: Trans Media Watch,[25] Maundy Relief, Marple Drama, WAST, Manchester People's Assembly, Reuben's Retreat, The Alex Williams Believe and Achieve Trust, and The Sophie Lancaster Foundation (for whom she and Ian held a creative writing competition in schools across the North West in 2011). The latter organisation was set up following the murder of Sophie Lancaster.

In 2019, she set up the group 500 Acts of Kindness,[26] a fundraising community where 500 members donate a pound a week to give to an individual, group, family or organisation in need.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Type	Notes
1994	The Dwelling Place	Rose Turnbull	TV	3 episodes
	Pat and Margaret	Helper in Old Age Home	Film
	The Bill	Jo	TV	Episode: "No Job for an Amateur"
1997	The Bill	Doctor		Episode: "Do Unto Others"
1998	Dalziel and Pascoe	Wendy Walker		Episode: "The Wood Beyond"
1998–2014	Coronation Street	Hayley Cropper		Regular role; 1,436 episodes
2001	Live Talk	Herself		Presenter; 11 episodes
2003	TV Burp	Hayley Cropper		Episode #2.4
2009	Coronation Street: Romanian Holiday		DVD	Coronation Street spin-off, released straight to DVD
2010	East Street		TV	Coronation Street and EastEnders combined for Children in Need
2015	Cucumber	Cleo Whitaker		8 episodes
	Banana			1 episode
	Inside No. 9	Kath Cook		1 episode: "La Couchette"
	Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster	Sylvia Lancaster		1 episode
	Closets	Penny	Film	20-minute short
2016	Happy Valley	Amanda Wadsworth	TV	Series 2
	Moving On	Linda		1 episode: "Taxi for Linda"
2017	Broadchurch	Trish Winterman		Series 3
2018	Doctor Who	Judy Maddox		Series 11, Episode 7: "Kerblam!"
	Peterloo	Female reformer	Film	Directed by Mike Leigh
2020	The Trouble with Maggie Cole	Jill Wheadon	TV	6 episodes
	The A Word	Heather

Awards and nominations

Year	Ceremony	Award	Nominated work	Result
1999	National Television Awards	Most Popular Actress	Coronation Street as Hayley Cropper	Nominated
	The British Soap Awards	Best On-Screen Partnership		Won
2004				Won
2013	Royal Television Society	Best Performance in a Continuing Drama		Won
2014	National Television Awards	Best Serial Drama Performance		Won
	TRIC Awards	Soap Personality		Nominated
	The British Soap Awards	Best Actress		Won
		Best On-Screen Partnership		Won
2015	Royal Television Society	Best Female Performance	Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster	Won
2017	Manchester Theatre Awards	Actress in a Leading Role	Wit	Won
2018	British Academy Television Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Broadchurch	Nominated

References

1. Gillings, Samantha (28 November 2000). "Answer me: Getting personal with ... Hayley Cropper". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
2. Chantler, Paul; Stewart, Peter (1 November 2009). Essential Radio Journalism: How to Produce and Present Radio News. A&C Black. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-7136-8874-0. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
3. Hesmondhalgh, Julie (10 January 2019). Julie Hesmondhalgh : a working diary. London. ISBN 978-1-350-02569-1. OCLC 1023607207.
4. Life, Northern (17 June 2015). "We talk to Julie Hesmondhalgh » Northern Life". Northern Life Magazine. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
5. "Julie Hesmondhalgh". IMDb. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
6. The Dwelling Place, retrieved 8 January 2020
7. Britton, Paul (20 January 2014). "Fifteen things to know about Julie Hesmondhalgh - Corrie's Hayley Cropper". men. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
8. "Julie Hesmondhalgh". IMDb. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
9. "Transgender: A History". AlbertaTrans.org. 2007. Archived from the original on 26 October 2008. Retrieved 16 December 2008.
10. "Goodbye Hayley". ITV. 17 January 2013. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013.
11. All Star Mr & Mrs (TV Series 2008– ) - IMDb, retrieved 18 March 2020
12. Bourne, Dianne (12 June 2014). "Julie Hesmondhalgh all smiles as she films new drama Cucumber in Manchester". Manchester Evening News.
13. "Interview with Julie Hesmondhalgh". bbc.co.uk. BBC Press Office. 19 January 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
14. "New cast members for Broadchurch 3 announced ahead of filming of the final series". ITV. 12 April 2016.
15. Tobin, Christian (4 November 2018). "Doctor Who series 11 episodes 7 and 8 feature the galaxy's biggest shop and 17th century witch trials". Digital Spy.
16. Catastrophe (TV Series 2015–2019) - IMDb, retrieved 18 March 2020
17. "When is Dawn French's The Trouble with Maggie Cole on TV?". Radio Times. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
18. "Julie Hesmondhalgh". Royal Television Society. 31 August 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2020.
19. "Julie Hesmondhalgh to read Lemn Sissay's The Report at the Royal Court". Whats on Stage. 7 April 2017. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
20. "The Almighty Sometimes-Content warning & spoiler alert". www.royalexchange.co.uk. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
21. Love, Catherine (14 February 2019). "Mother Courage and Her Children review – Julie Hesmondhalgh is the business". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
22. "Broadchurch actor introduces Jeremy Corbyn at Labour campaign launch – video". The Guardian. 9 May 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
23. Hesmondhalgh, Julie (15 August 2015). "Proudly supporting Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership contest". Twitter. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
24. Bloom, Dan; Milne, Oliver (9 May 2017). "Corrie star Julie Hesmondhalgh backs Jeremy Corbyn in tub-thumping speech saying he'll make Britain 'give a toss'". Daily Mirror. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
25. "Trans Media Watch – Supporters". Trans Media Watch. 2011. Retrieved 12 November 2011.
26. "500 Acts of Kindness- In conversation with Julie Hesmondhalgh". Nia Fisher. Retrieved 19 March 2020.

External links

• Julie Hesmondhalgh at Corrie.Net
• Julie Hesmondhalgh at IMDb 
• Julie Hesmondhalgh at the British Film Institute