Coronation Street's Lou had very different appearance on ITV soap six years ago

Fans of may be surprised to know that Lou Michaelis actress Farrel Hegarty had actually been on the soap before her latest role.

The actress has opened up on her looming exit from the cobbles, teasing what's ahead for the character. But she also revealed all about another character she played on the ITV soap around five or six years ago that fans may have forgotten about.

Lou is not the soap star's first soap role, and it certainly wasn't her first Cobbles visit. Back in 2019, Farrel played another character, a guest role, on the ITV soap.

Her character was a reporter who headed to the street in the wake of the shooting. With the siege leaving Robert Preston and the gunman dead and Shona Platt fighting for her life, residents were in turmoil.

The reporter, played by Farrel, headed to the cobbles with a camera crew to report outside The Rovers where Robert died. She ambushed his grieving partner Michelle Connor and her sons Ryan and Ali, wanting the scoop on the fatal incident of the night before.

Speaking of the role, Farrel told The and other press: "I played a reporter in 2019. Which I think someone dug up an image. I saw something that popped up and I thought: 'Oh, there I am!' It was in the Day episode of 2019. I think it was just 'reporter 1'!"

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But Farrel revealed she also graced the famous cobbled street before this too, when she was just five years old. Revealing she met Corrie legend Barbara Knox who plays Rita, she said: "I got a picture of me and her when I was like five, when I came to the Corrie tour."

Farrel will soon bow out as Lou, while she knew from the start her time on the cobbles would once again be limited. She detailed on why she took on the short-term role: "I just think she really appealed to me because she's the sort of person who's never had it easy.

"She's built up a lot of coping mechanisms, where she's presenting a hard and feisty character with her walls up, and all she's ever known is these fiery relationships. And probably fiery relationships with a lot of people in her life, which is what makes a character like that so interesting.

"Because she's a force and irrational. I read scripts and I go: 'Oh God! What's she doing now? What's she saying now?' Because it's not a way that I would behave, and because of that, it's so much fun to play. It's that desperation to protect that inner circle and because of that, she makes a mess of things. But a character like that is so fun to play, because there's never a dull moment."

On playing Lou, she went on: "It's great to play that character. I'm so lucky to play a role like this. To be honest, I tend not to get cast as shrinking violets if I'm honest! I must have one of those faces! But she's brilliant to play.

"Some of her behaviour really makes me wince sometimes because I think she can be quite hot-headed, irrational and she speaks before she thinks and she protects her own, which gets her into trouble.

"She does have a massive heart for the people she loves and she has good qualities in that. But I think, to a lot of people it's loud, feisty and quite unreasonable at times."

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