'It was not fun...' Suranne Jones admits her Coronation Street fame got out of hand
Suranne Jones played machinist Karen McDonald in Coronation Street from 2000 until 2004, and her success caused her to be hounded with fans and paparazzi.
Suranne Jones' Coronation Street fame was "not fun".
The actress was 21 years old when she first played machinist Karen McDonald in the hit ITV1 soap from 2000 until 2004, and had several big storylines.
This included her relationship with Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson), her numerous boyfriends, including Vikram Desai (Chris Bisson) and Joe Carter (Jonathan Wrather).
Karen also conceived a baby with Steve - thinking it would cement their relationship after Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford) crashed their wedding and confirmed he was the father of her baby, Amy, but Karen miscarried.
But away from Wetherfield, Suranne and some of her colleagues were continuously hounded, and it made them feel uncomfortable.
Speaking to Lennie and Jessie Ware on the latest episode of their Table Manners podcast, she recalled: "The paps were chasing us – it was just a different time … it was not fun, not when you're young.
"It was around the time of people needing to look a certain way, and all of that ring of shame, that's the era that we're talking about.
"I had people outside my house. I was being followed. I do think it was a particular time. Everyone was so young, we were all mid-20s. I didn't go to university, so that was my university."
Suranne - who bagged the Best Actress gong at the British Soap Awards, as well as Most Popular Actress accolade at the National Television Awards for Coronation Street in 2004 - thinks her success on the show soap caused the hype around her.
The star added: "I won quite a lot of awards then, because people loved Karen, because she was kind of feisty, people thought I was maybe like Karen. So I think the press loved the character and wanted something interesting for me."
Suranne thought people assumed the actress had a "really wild" personality just like her alter ego.
The star - who said the increase of weekly episodes caused her to be on screen more often - said: "We were just in more episodes and [spent] more time in people's living rooms.
"And like I said, Karen was really wild. So people just thought that I was."
