Suranne: 'I picked up bad habits on Coronation St'

Suranne: 'I picked up bad habits on Coronation St'
Suranne: 'I picked up bad habits on Coronation St' (Image credit: Alma Robinson/EMPICS Entertainment)

Suranne Jones has revealed she picked up some bad habits while in Coronation Street. The actress, who played Karen McDonald until 2004, said the fast pace of the soap world affected her acting. She told The Independent: "I was very aware of it, so I went to an acting coach, who I still use, and I said, 'I'm worried that I've got all these things in me that I've been switching on because soaps are so fast.'" She went on: "You get directed but sometimes you self-direct as well, so I was just worried that I had all these afflictions. And he said I did." Suranne, who can be seen in BBC One's Five Days, due to be screened in early March, said she loved playing her feisty character, but got tired of repeating herself. She said: "Karen McDonald was brilliant for three years and I loved playing her. "Then I think you start to repeat yourself, because in soaps you have to. "I think they thought I was quite good at emotional stuff and I was doing a lot of crying. "Then I'd go to the pub and look at the scripts and there'd be more crying the next day. "I just thought, while she's brilliant and I'm enjoying her, I've got to get out."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.