JENNIE MCALPI
I’ve got all that to come but at least I’ll be well practised at it
JENNIE MCALPINE ON HER SCREEN CHILD GROWING UP
As a busy working mum who plays a busy working mum, it’s not surprising that the line between Jennie Mcalpine’s real life and her screen role as Coronation Street’s Fiz Dobbs can sometimes blur.
Jennie says: “Especially when I ran between scenes to my daughter’s sports day recently. I wasn’t sure whether I was going to make it, so I came as a hybrid – half-fiz, half-jennie.
“I was wearing Fiz’s new coat – it even said Fiz on the label. We shouldn’t really go out in them but I didn’t have much time.”
Jennie, 40, is mum to nine year-old Albert, five year-old Hilda and Doris, 16 months, with her equally busy restaurateur husband Chris.
The mirror of her dressing room at work is covered in notes reminding her not only of her work schedule but who is meant to be picking up which child from which activity on which day.
Yet despite being run off her feet, Jennie, 40, hasn’t had enough of babies.
“Some people love diamonds, I love babies!” she says.
“It’s chaos at home but, even so, I can’t promise we will pause now!
“I love that TV programme 22 Kids & Counting. I can’t be like that but there’s a long way between three and 22, so I can’t definitely say ‘no more’. I love work and I love being a mum too.”
If it were possible, she would even have babies at 80, she says, adding: “I can’t help it – if I hadn’t been an actor, I’d have loved to have been a midwife.”
Jennie returned to the ITV soap four months ago, after her maternity leave with little Doris. But it’s only been this week that Fiz has been spotlighted in a huge storyline, when her husband Tyrone Dobbs’ former fling Alina Pop (played by Ruxandra Porojnicu) returned to Wetherfield... with a secret child in tow.
Viewers are now waiting to see whether the boy is a half-brother to 13-year-old Hope and 11-year-old Ruby, Tyrone (Alan Halsall) and Fiz’s children.
Yet it’s another of Fiz’s storylines with Hope (Isabella Flanagan) that has the
actress most on edge – when Hope is given free condoms by a GP. Jennie hopes having on-screen teenagers will help her when she has to navigate such tricky situations with her own children.
She says: “It’s not a storyline that me and Alan were ready to do.
“This feels very fast-forward to us. We thought Ruby was still our little baby girl!
“My own children are still very young, so I’ve got all that to come, but at least I’ll be well practised at it.
“Children grow up so fast. Bella, who plays Hope, was going off to a Taylor Swift concert the other day.
“It’s quite funny at work at the moment because Alan really does behave like her dad.
“He’s literally like: ‘She can’t be going to Taylor Swift,’ and I say: ‘She can, Alan, she can.’ I’m trying to be the cool mum!
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