Before quitting the role, Brenda Blethyn, who had previously played Vera Stanhope in the popular ITV drama, made the decision to spend more time with her loved ones.
Brenda Blethyn has revealed her unusual living arrangements with her husband of 15 years after her exit from the ITV drama show. The acclaimed actress played DCI Vera Stanhope on the show for 14 years.
In a shock statement last year, Brenda announced she would be quitting the role and her final scenes aired earlier this year as the show wrapped with a Christmas special and a two-part series.
She stated, “Working on Vera has been a joy from beginning to end, and I’m sad to be saying Cheerio.” However, I’m so pleased with what we have accomplished in the past fourteen years. I’ll be forever grateful to Elaine Collins and the wonderful Ann Cleeves who took the decision to cast me in the role.
“The producers, dream cast, and crew have been fantastic, and I’m going to miss them,” said the producer, “the huge talent, the camaraderie, laughter, or kindness we shared, nor the friendship of the people of the north east and our fans everywhere,” but I’ll miss them. I’m so grateful to you.
Brenda has now opened up about her relationship with Vera. After their disagreements were discovered, she revealed that she and her husband Michael Mayhew share a residence in Kent. However, they both reside in separate apartments.
“My husband lives upstairs. We moved into this very nice flat in Ramsgate. And I’d be saying, ‘Can I open a window, it’s very hot in here?’ And he’d say, ‘No, it’s freezing.’ And after a while, I said, ‘Is that flat downstairs still vacant?’” she told The Telegraph.
I therefore moved downstairs. It is extremely effective. We consume food together. We leave each other’s company. We share apartments, but we live together.
Brenda previously stated that her intention to move away from Vera was to spend more time with her family.
I have a family at home, and I realized I hadn’t spent a summer with my family for 14 years. I couldn’t drag myself away, so I kept going with another series. That’s all, she said, though it was a given that it was time.
I miss my family, “necessarily.” And my dog, Jack, who was with me in the North East, but I was working all day. I cherish both my Vera and other families.
She added: “And when you consider I was already thinking about packing work in when I was offered the job back in 2010, 14 series of working on Vera is pretty good going! I wasn’t actually going to do any more after series 13, but of course ITV said they needed to wind the series up. So I said: ‘Oh, go on then, I’ll do a couple more episodes.'”
Source: Mirror
Leave a Reply