Page 20 - Woman's Weekly - New Zealand (January 2020)

CELEB UPDATE

here aren’t many people
who would go to their
Tboss with the sole
intention of talking themselves
out of a job. But that’s exactly
what Katie McGlynn did when
she asked the producers of
Coronation Street to kill her off.
The result was her recent
cervical cancer storyline, where
viewers saw Katie’s character
Sinead Osbourne die following
a year-long battle with the
illness in some of the bravest
and most heartbreaking scenes
the Street has ever shot.
“When they first told me
about the story, they weren’t
sure if it was going to be
terminal,” Katie (26) tells.
“But I said, ‘I think she should
die.’ I said that knowing it
would mean I didn’t have a job.
But I wanted to show real life.
There’s not always a fairytale
ending and people do die.
Some TV shows fear the sad
ending, but I wanted to make
it as real as possible.”
Which it absolutely was.
The unnerving time jumps,
edgy camera work and focus
on Sinead’s breathing made
those final scenes extremely
intense to watch, and Katie
says she’s proud to have been
ll
a part f of it all.
But, um, what about her
mortgage? “I’ve got savings,
I’m not completely daft,”
she la hs. “It’s a bit scar
to not have a b, but I’m
‘KILL ME OFF’ getting itchy feet a couple
okay for now.”
The truth is, Katie started

of years ago, frustrated that
Sinead was plodding along
wit any major drama. She
Katie’s Coro -producer Kate Oates
a
ed a meeting with

talk through her
issatisfaction and
h
intention to quit.
sacrifice much,” she says
“I’d ust turned
24 and was on
this big show, but
I wasn’t doing

candidly. “I felt a
bit lost. I’d come
from a lot of drama
WHY THE ACTRESS INSISTED ON at my previous job on
SINEAD’S HEARTBREAKING ENDING Waterloo Road, wherdd e

20 New Zealand Woman’s Weekly