Coronation Street star Sally Carman has said she is "looking forward" to filming Debbie Webster's funeral, describing it as an "honour" for her character Abi Webster to head up the arrangements.
The actress, 51, plays Abi in the long-running ITV soap, and in recent months her character has become a confidante to her sister-in-law Debbie, played by Sue Devaney, who is living with dementia. Viewers have seen Debbie, who is set to leave the soap at some point next year, ask Abi to help organise her funeral and work with her on writing her eulogy before she passes away.
An honour to do it properly
Speaking to The Mirror about the sad scenes ahead, Sally said: "I'm looking forward to it! Just to honour that and to do it properly. And also to honour Sue. She's putting her all into this, and she's smashing it, and I want to do the very, very best I can do."
Things could have been very different for Abi and Debbie. Abi was previously married to Debbie's brother Kevin, but had an affair with the man everyone believed was her other brother. In a twist, it was revealed that Debbie was in fact Carl's mum and had given him up decades ago.
A connection beneath the clashes
Sally is confident that things have worked out as they always would have done, because even though the pair have been at loggerheads in the past, they still care about each other first and foremost.
Sally added: "You hear all the time how like people at school hated each other, then suddenly had to be put in a situation and then they found out they actually wanted to be best friends forever, that kind of thing.
"Abi and Debbie have clashed and rowed and fallen out, but that's because they care enough to do that. And underneath it all, there's a connection and a recognition. For Abi, she's never had a parental figure, and Debbie kind of covers the mother thing and the sister thing.
"And despite all the fallings out, Debbie's never shut her out completely and always sort of forgiven her and brought her back in. And Abi recognizes that. And Abi can be completely herself."
Life at home with co-star husband
In real life, Sally is married to co-star Joe Duttine, who plays Tim Metcalfe. Asked how that plays out at home, she said they don't really talk about work.
She said: "Well, we don't really talk about work. We just sort of like, we do our job, and then come home and just crack on with life. I mean, obviously, work comes up. And we don't learn lines together, don't do any of that. We just crack on and we talk about what we're having for tea.
"It's much easier! We get it, 'cause we're in the same job, we don't really need to talk about it. So if he if he sort of says, 'Oh, yeah, we had chicken again,' and it's like 'All right, yeah. It—but it's just—we just don't really need to do that, bizarrely, yeah."
Coronation Street airs weeknights at 8:30pm on ITV1 and ITV X.
