She was asked ‘How much?’ outside the office of rival soap Emmerdale!
Coronation Street star Kel Allen, who plays Laura Neelan, has revealed how she was mistaken for a prostitute and propositioned for sex when she auditioned for rival soap, Emmerdale.
Back in 2017, the actress went up for the guest role of Tiffany – an escort hired by teenager Gerry Roberts to take best friend Lachlan White’s virginity. It was a part that she went on to secure.
When she attended the casting call, she dressed for how she believed the character would look, but got more than she bargained for when she left the building.
Explains Allen: ‘When you go for an audition, you generally go with a tiny hint of what they [the character] should be and look like, so I’d gone in with my interpretation. I was in this room with all these other girls who all looked like ‘ladies of the night’ shall we say.
“And on the way out, a builder asked me ‘How much?’ I thought ‘Well, I’ve nailed the look!’”
Allen joined the cast of Coronation Street earlier this year, but it’s not her first appearance on the soap. In 2018, she played Lulu Lockett, the manager of Tassels strip club, where Bethany Platt worked.
“I had a run of being cast as hookers, escorts, lap dancers and madams,” says Allen. “That was a better role because Lula was the MD of a sex club, rather than just dancing in one.
“I didn’t know whether to say ‘I’m being pulled in for these kind of roles – is this a compliment or should it be giving me a complex that people are seeing me that way?’”
As Weatherfield’s Laura, Allen is currently involved in the high profile storyline that has seen Gary Windass murder loan shark Rick in self defence, and subsequently bury his body in the woods.
Asked if she believes Laura will want revenge on Gary if she discovers his dark secret, Allen says she thinks her character will, instead, be open to a bribe.
“Laura comes from such a seedy background herself that she’d probably try to avoid the police. She’s underground, she’s earthy. She’d definitely be bribing Gary.
“I think she’d bribe the hell out of him to get money; maybe just to buy herself some clothes for party nights!”
