CORONATION Street legend Julie Hesmondhalgh has revealed that her character Hayley Cropper was initially introduced as part of a joke storyline.
Julie was a regular on Corrie for over a decade, during which time her character married Roy Cropper (David Neilson) and became a soap-fan favourite – but her role on the soap was originally meant to be much smaller and part of a joke played on Roy.
Hayley first appeared on the soap in 1998 and was a regular fixture in Weatherfield until her on-screen death in 2014.
Her biggest storyline was her relationship with and eventual marriage to Roy.
Although they were not always the most affectionate couple, they enjoyed a happy life together.
However, this was almost not the case. Speaking on a soap panel at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Wednesday (21 August), Julie revealed that her character was only meant to appear as a joke, though she didn’t know it at the time.
“The casting director took me and said this was the deal with the character. She was going to be trans … [but] I didn’t know until later was that it was actually just going to be a joke storyline,” Julie explained.
She continued: “Roy had sort of embedded himself in the show as a popular – if slightly strange character – and he was going to have a series of disastrous dates, of which Hayley was the first.
“The punchline of this story was that she would take him for dinner and say ‘I’m trans,’” after which Roy would consider the date to be a disaster and “disappear into the distance.”
But somewhere along the line, the plan for Julie’s character changed and Roy and Hayley ended up falling in love.
They got married unofficially in 1999 and again in 2010, at which time their union was legally acknowledged following the Gender Recognition Act of 2004.
Julie praised Corrie for wanting to take on a transgender storyline as she felt the soap often shied away from the “issues.”
But telling an important story was something that meant a lot to her and something she always wanted to do as an actress.
“To be in a soap that was dealing with an issue that might change things, it was something that was really, really close to my heart,” she said.
“I knew that it would be an issue that I was a cis-gendererd person playing a trans character, even back then I knew that.
“But I also knew that in the temperature of those times, which unfortunately is the temperature of these times now too, that the stress and the press decimation of the actor playing that part if they were trans would be just horrific.
Over the years, all three of the main soaps have featured plots that have had even die-hard fans reaching for their phones and laptops so they can get in touch with Ofcom and complain. Here are just some of the most scandalous…
“So I knew that I would represent that community with as much authenticity and respect and care as I could. I trusted myself with that job,” Julie explained.
She learned everything she could about transgender issues before taking on the responsibility of the role.
Julie was thrilled that Hayley was so well received by ITV viewers.
“What happened was, and this is the amazing thing and I think this is the power of soap, is that people got behind the relationship between Hayley and Roy.
“So what was supposed to be a joke at the start of the story – not in my head ever – was something that the public got behind and that’s what soaps do,” she gushed.
And Julie felt that by portraying a transgender character on the soap, she really was making a difference in people’s lives.
“People can get to know people and get behind characters and the relationships and get to know the humanity and get to know them,” she said. “So it’s a person that’s in your living room three, four, five times a week, so the issue becomes secondary to the person and the relationship.”
She found that as her character’s popularity grew, viewers would come up to her in the supermarket and ask when her character Hayley and Roy would be getting married.
In response, Julie would explain that it wasn’t legal for transgender people to get married at the time and she was met with outrage.
“And they’d say ‘never mind that’ and I thought, ‘this is how you change the world,’” she added.
