Wendi Peters played the iconic Cilla Battersby-Brown in the ITV soap
Former Coronation Street star Wendi Peters has said she doesn’t feel taken “seriously” as an actress following her days on the famous cobbles.
The 57-year-old star played the iconic Cilla Battersby-Brown in the ITV soap from 2003 until 2007 before returning for a brief stint in 2014, but has admitted that the role “changed people’s perspective” of her in a “ridiculous” way.
Speaking on the ‘In The Frame’ podcast, she said: “It does change people’s perspective quite ridiculously of what you can do as an actor. [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 played the neglectful mother of Chesney Brown and Fiz Dobbs on the long-running show – has since returned to her roots in theatre and is currently starring as socialite Florence Foster Jenkins in ‘Glorious!’ at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester.
But the former ‘Doctors’ actress admitted it makes her “upset and angry” that she can’t even get an audition for certain roles because she is so well-known as Cilla.
She said: “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. 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.”
