Coronation Street star Natalie Anderson appeared on Loose Women as she opened up about the "tough" reality of what it's like working on the ITV soap.
During Wednesday's (April 23) instalment, head panellist Coleen Nolan sat down with Judi Love, Penny Lancaster and Myleene Klass as they discussed topics close to their heart.
Actress Natalie joined the panel later in the show as they aired a special previous of Wednesday's episode, without giving away any spoilers, Natalie did tease: "Tonight is the night!"
She showed up in Emmerdale in 2010 to take on the role of Alicia Metcalfe before she departed the ITV soap in 2015. She also played the role as Stella Davenport in the medical drama The Royal from 2005 to 2008 and was more recently seen in the hit Netflix drama Fool Me Once.
Alicia was the sister of Leyla Harding, and she adopted Jacob Gallagher as Leyla gave Jacob to Alicia and Justin to raise because Alicia was infertile. She left in 2015 to go and live in Portugal and hasn't been seen in the Dales since - even in recent weeks when Leyla died after the limo crash.
However, Natalie has since made her debut in rival soap Coronation Street as the wife of Theo Silverton, Danielle. Todd Grimshaw took a shine to Theo when the scaffolder first arrived in the village, and it appeared as though the feelings were mutual after their first date.
It was then revealed to Todd that Theo is married to Danielle and they share two children together. Todd enlisted the help of Sarah Platt and asked her to pretend that they were dating.
However, George Shuttleworth accidentally blew their cover by informing Danielle that Todd is gay after she wanted to confront Sarah about being with Kit Green.
Unfortunately, Danielle assumed that Sarah was having an affair with Theo and went to loudly confront her at the Rovers, with Sarah narrowly missing being soaked by a pint.
Appearing on Loose Women, Natalie admitted that after leaving her role in Emmerdale, it "is a challenge" to take on a different role but: "That's why I love my job".
She continued: "I like to move around quite a lot and not stay around for too long" as Judi joked that she feels the same about relationships.
The star then shared that she "nearly cried" on her first day on the set of Coronation Street, as she said: "It’s such a part of our landscape to get the call they wanted me to play the role, it was incredible.
"Even though I've been doing this job a long time these moments are still really precious." Natalie then admitted: "I do feel soap actors are some of the hardest working actors" continuing that "it's really difficult, it's tough... It's a machine".
Comparing it to working on a movie set, the actress said that while on the soap "you could be doing up to 15 scenes in a day" whereas on a bigger production it can take four hours to do one scene.
Loose Women airs on weekdays from 12:30pm on ITV1 and is available to stream on ITVX.
