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Interview 1
Julie is a Lancashire-born, Manchester-based actor and activist who is perhaps best known for her role as Hayley in Coronation Street and for her BAFTA nominated performance in ITV’s Broadchurch. She has most recently been on tour in The Greatest Play in the History of the World and on TV in The A Word and The Pact. She’s also a regular voice on BBC Radio 4. She is a founder member of Take Back, a Manchester theatre collective, and fundraising group 500 Acts of Kindness. Her Working Diary was published by Methuen in 2019.
[photo by Elspeth Moore]
Questions by Amy Norton
Do you consider yourself a feminist? If so, what led you to realise?
Yes I certainly do. If you believe in equal rights and equal pay and a woman’s right to live her life without harassment or sexual violence, that women should be in charge of their own bodies and reproductive rights, then you are a feminist as far as I’m concerned. Luckily, the word doesn’t have quite the negative connotations it once had, thanks to the third wavers.
Name a woman who has significantly influenced your life and how?
I’m going to say my Grandma, Ivy, whose husband (my Grandpa) left her with two young children (my Mum was two) and who managed to bring up two daughters and earn a living as a tailoress (as it was called then!) She was profoundly deaf, and at the end of her life blind too, but was still living in her first floor council flat, making cakes and crocheting. In her seventies she would just disappear with her dog, get a bus to Wales and camp in the hills. She also took up painting in the latter part of her life before her eyes failed and became a successful local artist. Talk about a role model.
Share a pivotal moment in your career.
The single most pivotal moment in my career was getting the role of Hayley in Coronation Street in 1998 when I was 27. It was completely life-changing, in terms of security, fame, everything. I met the love of my life there and brought up my daughters while I was working there. But crucially, it was an opportunity to change the world in a modest way! Hayley was the first trans character in a UK soap, and although (as I discovered later) she was initially brought in as a joke (Roy was to have a series of disastrous dates and Hayley was the first, the denouement being that she was trans- hilarious, I know) it worked out very differently. There was such chemistry between the two characters and the public got behind their relationship, and I really do think it shifted people’s perceptions of trans people. Elderly shoppers in ASDA would ask me when Roy and Hayley would marry, and when I would reply that they couldn’t (as the law didn’t allow it back then) they would be outraged! We were mentioned in parliament as being instrumental in bringing about the Gender Recognition Act. Of course now I couldn’t possibly play a trans character, and nor should I. It would be a complete anachronism if I were still in the show, but back then I truly believed that it would have been intolerable pressure on a trans actor because of the way the press talked about trans people. It’s bad now, but then..! Now there are so many wonderful trans artists and actors, thank goodness. I am very proud of Hayley’s legacy and remain a trans ally in these turbulent times. Playing a part that proved political also set my stall for playing other issue-led roles beyond Corrie too. Playing a rape survivor in Broadchurch for example.
Could you talk about an incident in your career where you felt you were treated differently because of your sex?
To be honest, I’ve felt it more keenly around class issues as an actor I think. I have felt the invisibility of being a woman who has little cache sexually, not particularly falling into any category of desirability. I have felt this dismissal keenly, and of course that becomes most women’s experience as they age. And especially in my looks-obsessed profession. It’s been hard not to internalise misogyny around societal beauty norms, and I’m almost surprised if a young man chooses to chat to me as if I have something to contribute. I don’t feel like that around young women. I absolutely love the company of younger women.
If you could have dinner with three women (alive or dead), who would it be and why?
Jackie Kay, Rebecca Taylor, Caitlin Moran: that would be a feminist riot!
What's the book that you always recommend to people and why?
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple was the book that started me on my feminist journey, but more lately, Bernadine Evarista’s Girl, Woman, Other, which is such a rich book with a huge intersectional, intergenerational reach in its discussions of the experience of women, and in particular, women of colour. It blew me away, and I’ve bought it for so many people since I read it.
Tell us about something that makes you angry.
So many things! Spiking, rape, transphobia, unacknowledged privilege, climate change denial, the Tories! If you’re not angry at the moment, what’s the matter with you?
Share with us your favourite album and why?
Oooh this has changed over the years, I was always such a massive Smiths fan but, you know, Morrissey... At the moment it is Prioritise Pleasure by Self- Esteem. Oh my god, I love Rebecca Taylor SO MUCH. I love everything she is and represent.... and that voice!
Could you give us an example of everyday sexism you have faced recently?
I see it more through my daughters’ eyes. My eldest daughter used to get cat-called daily in her school uniform, both have been vulnerable online, as all girls are. A few years ago when my oldest was at school she got off the bus on International Women’s Day and a group of lads were chanting “We hate women!” at her.
Is there an issue facing women today that you feel most concerned about?
The division around the Gender Recognition stuff and the rise in violence against transwomen; abortion rights being rolled back all over the world; sex work and our inability to discuss it in an intersectional way that takes into account the experience of migrant women and women living in poverty.
What advice would you give your eighteen-year-old self?
That pleasure is really important too, that you don’t have to change the world by yourself, that you’ll never stop learning, that there will always be so much more to learn. I learn from my daughters every day, and I love their brand of intersectional, inclusive feminism.
Tell us something few people know about you?
That I was a born again Christian in my teens! Like fellow-Accringtonian Jeanette Winterson, I feel I haven’t lost that evangelistic spirit, I’ve just transferred it to more worldly matters!