Joanna Lumley believes Sir Ian McKellen inspired a surge in actors wanting to be in soaps after he joined ‘Coronation Street’.
The former ‘Corrie’ actress – who played Ken Barlow’s (Bill Roache) girlfriend Elaine Perkins for eight episodes in 1973 – thinks the ‘Lord of the Rings’ star was a huge hit for Soapland after he graced the cobbles with his presence in May 2005 as Lionel Hipkiss, who used the alias Mel Hutchwright, for three weeks, because "everybody" wanted to be in soaps afterwards.
She said: "Once Ian McKellen went into ‘Coronation Street’ there was no stopping everybody. It was if they suddenly went, ‘I am Batman.’ ‘I want to be in ‘Coronation Street’, ‘EastEnders’.’
"But ‘Corrie’ was the one that caught them.
"But in the old days, all I wanted was a job that went on for more than one episode of ‘On the Buses’, which I was paid £60 for."
Joanna looks back on her time in Weatherfield with fond memories, and she was particularly amazed when she was in the green room one day when an Australian tour visited the set, and she couldn’t believe how emotional they became from visiting the "iconic" location.
Speaking at The Edinburgh International Television Festival in Scotland, she added: "I remember coming up to Manchester and going to the green room of ‘Coronation Street’, and being there when an Australian tour had come to the end of its huge journey around the world.
"They’d been to the pyramids, they’d been down the Rift Valley, they’d been to the Grand Canyon, they’d been up the Empire State Building.
"The highlight of their tour was to come to ‘Coronation Street’. Many of them were crying. Just crying to find themselves in that iconic place.
"To see Ena Sharples, Vi Carson walking past, and she’d go, ‘Hello,’ and they’d go, ‘Oh my God!’ As if they’d seen the Virgin Mary. It was pretty thrilling stuff. It was pretty thrilling.
"It was a big bump when I came back from that."
Joanna Lumley: Ian McKellen inspired actors to take on soap roles
