Coronation Street legend left ‘upset and angry’ after iconic role in soap

Wendi Peters has spoken out on her legendary Coronation Street role and how she feels she’s taken less ‘seriously’ as an actor as a result.

The actress portrayed Cilla Battersby-Brown in the long-running ITV soap between 2003 and 2007, reprising the part for a number of weeks in 2014.

Known for her dastardly antics and penchant for getting up to no good, Cilla swiftly achieved iconic cobbles status, becoming a firm fan-favourite.

Over a decade on since she was last on the eponymous Street, Wendi has addressed her time on the serial and how it ‘changed people’s perspective’ of what she can do as an actor.

She said: ‘[Cilla] was such a big character that people saw me as that and still now people will say: “Oh, you don’t talk like that!”

‘No, I don’t. It was a put-on voice.

‘I do think – and this is quite a controversial thing to say – but I do think that sometimes the industry doesn’t take soap actors seriously.’

Wendi, who recently starred on Doctors, admitted that it makes her ‘upset and angry’ that she can’t land an audition for particular roles due to how synonymous she is with Cilla.

‘There are certain things I’d love to be seen for and I would love to be doing, but I don’t get a look in,’ she said on In The Frame podcast.

‘So, there are a few venues within London and up in Warwickshire that I don’t even get seen for.

‘It makes me upset and angry that they don’t realise what I’ve done and what I am capable of doing.

‘And what I’ve done since – all these intimate venues and tours, plays and musicals. Read my CV, basically.’.