Hollyoaks’ first transgender actress, Annie Wallace, has revealed she worked with the writers of Coronation Street for the first trans character on screen 18 months before she came out.
The 56-year-old actress appeared on Lorraine on Tuesday morning to open up about trans visibility in the media as part of trans awareness week.
Prior to her role as head teacher at Hollyoaks High, the soap star confessed she had a large hand in the development of the character of Hayley Cropper back in 2010 before she came out as a trans woman publicly.
The starlet confessed she “put a lot of herself” into the character as she shared her experiences coming out through the TV character onscreen.
As Lorraine welcomed her onto the show, she shared how much of herself she put into the character of Hayley as she was finding her feet as a trans woman.
The 61-year-old presenter opened with: “There’s a lot of you though, you put a lot of yourself in Hayley didn’t you when you were talking about the character with Julie and developing the character and all of that.”
Annie explained: “So, she was in for about six months doing her initial stint of meeting Roy and falling in love and I had nothing to do with that.
(Image: Unknown)
“It was when she came back in in Amsterdam, then they asked me through my friend Christine who was with Pressed for Change, ‘Would you like to help because you’re quite keen on this storyline’.”
She went on: “I said, ‘Yeah I’m really keen’ because I thought she was very much like I was at the beginning, kind of a bit shy, trying to get on, get a job, settle.
And I said, ‘Yeah I’m really happy to help’ and that turned into an 18-month on-off consultation with the writers.”
(Image: Lime Pictures)
It was then that the star revealed she came out as a proud trans woman just before she started her role on Hollyoaks back in 2015.
Annie went on to make TV history as she became the first trans actress to play the role of a trans character in soap history.
And now, the star continues to break stereotypes through her role of Sally St Claire as the headteacher of Hollyoaks High.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
