One of our most beloved Corrie characters was originally cast as a ‘joke’

We couldn't imagine the soap without her.

Coronation Street is one of the best soaps on the TV these days. The British programme has been around for what feels like the start of time and it could be down to its great mix of characters, intricate storylines and of course, a couple of explosions a year. The street shows us the good, the bad and the ugly of human life including numerous births and deaths on the show, but one of the most heartbreaking deaths on the show had to be of Hayley Cropper. Actress Julie Hesmondhalgh spoke of how the character Hayley was originally introduced as a joke. According to Metro,

"I wasn’t meant to be in Coronation Street for any longer than two weeks... "The character of Hayley was originally written as a joke. It wasn’t a politically correct one, but this was back in 1998. "The joke was that Roy Cropper (David Neilson) was going to go on a series of disastrous blind dates, one of them being with a man who had transgendered to a woman."

Actress Julie said that after viewers fell in love with the relationship of Roy and Hayley, they then decided to write her into the soap more.