Suranne Jones: ‘I'd go back to Coronation Street. Why not?'

Times

10 hours ago

The actress and producer Suranne Jones, 46, grew up in Chadderton, Greater Manchester. Her first major role was playing Karen McDonald in Coronation Street. She won a Bafta for Doctor Foster and was nominated for her role in Gentleman Jack. She has also starred in Vigil and appears in Netflix's Hostage. She lives in London with her husband and their nine-year-old son.
It's a scary time for the industry and the arts. I worry that the government won't continue to fund in the right places and we don't take it seriously enough. Theatre needs to reach young people.
If they asked, 'Would you come and do an episode of Coronation Street?' I'd say, 'Why not?' If you had asked me two years after I left the show, I'd have said, 'Absolutely not. I'm going to do all these things.' But now it's 21 years ago, it might be fun.
Donald Trump is like a caricature. What he's said [about 100 per cent tariffs on films made outside America] is absolute madness. It's mind-boggling.
The women before us had no language for the perimenopause. It must have been horrendous. I never heard my mum, aunties or cousins talking about it, other than that they were hot or they felt a bit mad. I have the language to say to anyone, 'This is what I'm experiencing.' You can walk into a room and have that conversation. You could never do that before.
A woman stopped me in the toilet and said, 'You're the reason I was able to tell my gran I was gay and introduce her to my girlfriend.' [Jones played gay characters in Vigil and Gentleman Jack.] I get a lot of messages on Instagram and I feel really connected to the LGBTQ community.
I would be scared to play the Doctor. I thought Ncuti Gatwa [who left Doctor Who in May] did a brilliant job. That's a lot to live up to. It's a pressurised job. I love Jodie Whittaker — watching some of her episodes with my son, I'm like, wow, that takes a lot. So I'd be a bit frightened of it. But I'm really pleased I got to play in that universe [in the 2011 episode The Doctor's Wife]. It was so special.
I lost both my parents. You have to rebuild yourself. I feel lucky that not only do I have a therapist, but I have a way of giving back my experience of grief via the arts.
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I worry when the people who make smartphones say they don't give them to their kids. Or they limit themselves. My son doesn't have a phone. It's so addictive. I get lost scrolling. I have to take a holiday from it, because it's scary. I'd love to have a huge digital detox.
I have always looked after my wellness and mental health in a really serious way. Not only with therapy — exercise to me is also about mental health. If I don't do it, then I'm very lost and I just want to go to bed — I get so overwhelmed with life. I do what therapists call 'parts work', where you look at the different parts that make up a person. I've got little girl me who's ready to play, teenage me who's ready to knock someone out, someone with a drink and a fag, someone with a clipboard, the one who has got a chip on her shoulder and the one who's a geek. We need to take care of all these aspects of our personalities.
Being bullied was hard. It made me stand up for myself. But it's nothing like what young people must experience now. Anything I went through was for a moment at school, then I got home and into the safety of family life. Now, you can't get away from it.
My nine-year-old loves ChatGPT. I never use it. He likes coding and he's good at maths – I've got no idea how that is even possible, because his dad and I are not.
Therapy is amazing. It's having a safe space to talk. It's a toolkit. I have learnt how to navigate things when I start to become overwhelmed. Not everyone can afford to go to a therapist and there's a huge waiting list on the NHS. But therapy can be talking openly with your partner or friends.
I had to make friends with fame. A lot of people may well see Hostage and recognise me more often on the street. That will be a little tough, but I've been there before. I've seen waves of it. I was there with the Circle of Shame [a feature in Heat magazine that criticised female celebrities' appearances], worried about how I looked. Fame gets you some nice things, but what I really want is to go to the seaside with my little boy and do what everyone else is doing.
Hostage streams on Netflix from August 21
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