Coronation Street has surprising cameo in Netflix's new hit thriller
Fans tuning into new Netflix thriller Below weren't expecting a Corrie crossover.
Coronation Street has played a surprising role in Netflix's new thriller Below.
The streaming giant's new seafaring supernatural miniseries follows fisherman Calvin Penney (Josh Hartnett), whose small town life in Newfoundland is at risk when a sea monster emerges from the murky depths of the sea.
At one point, two thugs come to get the thousands of dollars Calvin's son Jay (Rohan Campbell) owes them.
When they need somewhere to shelter, Irene Tulk (Cathy Jones) gives them each a sandwich and a drink, and pops on an episode of Corrie.
Showrunner Jesse McKeown told the Radio Times magazine: "Coronation Street is huge here in Newfoundland. It's very popular, and it was even big when I was growing up in Vancouver.
"It's a big part of the culture, and then that scene with that character named Irene Tulk, played by Cathy Jones, was just a little window into the kind of people that still do live around the bay.
"A lot of the young people have moved away, but there are many senior citizens who live out there, and they watch Coronation Street."
Jesse admitted that the idea of "two thugs from the mainland" ending up "billeting with" Irene and Corrie on the telly was "really funny".
Below also has a deeper connection to the cobbles, as producer Louise Sutton used to work on the longrunning ITV soap "very early in her career".
Jesse added: "She's done a million amazing things since then, but in Newfoundland, she was a celebrity because she produced Coronation Street."
Corrie fans can see the surprise cameo in Below, which is streaming now on Netflix.
Leading man Josh recently revealed he was drawn to the script because the characters felt "live in".
He told Netflix's Tudum: "I read the first two scripts in less than an hour.
"I read it so quickly because the voice was so clear, the concept was so engaging, and the character was fantastic. I’d never read anything like it before.
" I had never read anything that was set in Newfoundland before. I didn’t understand the long history of Newfoundland being its own country and having its own dialect and its own very specific ancestry.”
