Coronation Street’s Simon Gregson lays bare ‘very strange’ reality behind soap scenes
Coronation Street actor Simon Gregson has opened up about his long-running role as Steve McDonald in the soap, admitting he has shared some very intimate moments with co-stars
Simon with on-screen partner Chloe Newsome(Image: TV Times, TV Times/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
The soaps might portray ordinary, everyday existence, but what goes on behind the cameras is far from ordinary, according to Coronation Street’s Simon Gregson.
Simon has been playing Steve McDonald for more than 35 years, navigating dramatic plots including gangster beatings and seven marriages, to five different wives and an extended struggle with depression. Yet it’s the intimate scenes that Simon has found most demanding.
On the People Are Deep podcast, he revealed: “In my job you have to get to know people so very quickly because you can have only have just met them that day and you’ve got to snog them, be half naked with them in a bed, and do a ‘before the watershed’ sex scene and tell them you love them.”
Simon has been part of some of the show’s most emotional storylines(Image: ITV)
The 50-year-old added that working so closely with fellow actors means “it becomes very raw” almost immediately. He described it as “a very strange, but a nice feeling”.
Simon was discovered for his Corrie part whilst still at school, though acting had never been his intended career path. “I joined Coronation Street by accident,” he revealed.
“I was wagging school with a friend of mine…he was adamant that we were just going to stay off school for the whole day, but I said ‘Absolutely not. We need to go in, we need to do the register so at least they think we’re there, and then we’ll go to Manchester Arndale Centre.'”
He says he’s always found love scenes quite strange
Simon and his pal were in for a surprise when they rocked up at school, only to find ITV talent scouts on the hunt for fresh faces to join the cast of Coronation Street.
“They took photographs of us,” Simon reminisced, “because I think they had a certain look they were looking for. I had blue eyes, the dad was Irish. That was as simple as it was.”
The scouts had their eyes set on Simon and Nicholas Cochrane from Kingsway School to audition for a couple of new roles on the cobbles.
“Then,” Simon recounted, “some guy started talking to us and we had to stop him and say, ‘Sorry, you’re talking to us as if we’ve got the job.’ And he went, ‘Yeah you’ve got the job.’ And I’ve been there ever since.”
Simon has played Steve McDonald for 35 years(Image: ITV)
Before this unexpected turn, Nicholas Cochrane had already dipped his toes into the world of TV as an extra for Granada TV, which produces Coronation Street. And after he landed the part of Andy McDonald, the producers wanted someone with a similar look to play his twin brother.
When the opportunity came knocking, Simon didn’t hesitate. He confessed: “I’d never acted in my life. I didn’t want to be an actor.”
He was more enticed by the prospect of television’s financial rewards, saying: “It was the fact it was TV, and TV sound sounded very much like money to me, I wanted some of that green stuff!”
Steve McDonald has been though several marriages on the show(Image: TV Times, TV Times via Getty Images)
While Nicholas bowed out after seven years, with just a few reappearances for family weddings, Simon’s impromptu decision has led to a career spanning decades on the beloved soap.
“I wouldn’t say no to being in Coronation Street, playing Steve, for the rest of my life,” Simon declared.
“For me it was never about ambition. It was never about treading the boards and trying new things. For me it was always a job, you know, a regular wage.
“I love what I do. I love the people that I work with. So as long as they’ll have me, and pay me, I’ll stay.”