Celebrity
Actor Georgia Taylor on finding fun and lasting friendships on the cobbles
When Georgia Taylor joined Coronation Street straight from school, she had no idea how much impact the show would have on her life.
For not only did it launch her acting career, it’s also where she met both her boyfriend and her best friend.
‘I have so many happy memories associated with the show,’ Georgia says. ‘It changed my life when I was turning 17 and it’s still having a huge impact on my life now, and a very positive one. I feel very grateful for it.’
Georgia, best known as Toyah Battersby (and later, Toyah Habeeb in the soap), joined the cast in 1997 and stayed for six years, before leaving to try her hand at other roles. She returned in 2016 after 13 years away.
‘I’m still very happy that I made that decision to come back,’ she says. ‘It was absolutely the right thing to do. Life has a funny way of turning out OK sometimes, in a way that you maybe don’t expect.’
At the time, Georgia was living in Bristol, having spent four years in the BBC1 medical drama Casualty. But last year she made the decision to relocate back to Manchester.
‘It’s wonderful being back, I’m absolutely loving it,’ she enthuses. ‘I’m 25 minutes from my mum and dad now, I’m 40 minutes from my brother and I’ve also got a lot of friends here.’
‘It feels like the right time for me to come home. I’m not spending my whole life on the M6 now.’
While Georgia began dating her actor boyfriend Charlie De Melo last year, she met her best friend, fellow actor Jane Danson, on her very first day on the show, when they were cast as sisters Toyah and Leanne Battersby.
Georgia, 44, says that, 27 years on, they are as close as ever, and text each other every day. ‘Our friendship has grown over time,’ she explains. ‘We’ve seen each other through personal challenges and good things in life too, and each passing year, the friendship has strengthened.’
‘We’ll go for a bite to eat, or to the theatre, or I might go over to hers and we’ll go out for a dog walk. If I don’t see her, we are texting pretty much every single day. Even when we’re together at work all day, we’ll usually text each other that night too. We probably speak to each other more than we do our partners!’
Georgia also credits Jane with helping her through her first months on the cobbles. A child actor, Jane had many years of experience behind her, whereas it was Georgia’s f
