Ellie Leach’s Coronation Street leaving gift honours Faye Windass in sweet way
16.05.2023 - 06:49
/ ok.co.uk
She’s played Faye Windass since she was 9 years old, so it’s no wonder Ellie Leach is daunted about leaving Coronation Street 12 years later.The actress is leaving Coronation Street to find new roles and bigger challenges, but she admits she shed real tears after her final scenes and will miss her co-stars dearly - especially best pal Colson Smith, who plays her character Faye's boyfriend Craig Tinker. However, while she’s leaving the cobbles behind, Ellie will carry Faye with her, thanks to the gorgeous gold necklace the cast had engraved for her.
“It was emotional but it was happy tears,” shares Ellie, who filmed on her last day with Colson, Lisa George (Beth Tinker) and Mikey North (Gary Windass). “We finished and loads of people came on set and brought me gifts and it was really emotional and so, so nice.
I got a really lovely handbag, some flowers, a big Millies cookie which said, ‘Faye Windass Forever,’ and I got a really beautiful, engraved necklace from the cast which means I can always have Corrie with me wherever I go. It’s engraved with two hearts and it says FW for Faye Windass.” It’s a big world out there, but Coronation Street has given Ellie the best training she could ever wish for thanks to complex storylines including becoming a teenage mum, going through early menopause and being a victim of a sexual assault.
“I've learned so so much from being on the set and working with the people that I've been lucky enough to work with,” says Ellie. “It's the best training ground that you could ever ask for.” When she started on the soap she was just shy of ten years old and her troubled character was adopted by Anna Windass.