Corrie star Calum Lill reveals the unexpected manual job he gave up for dream role

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Joel Deering (Calum Lill) is about to come under fire in Coronation Street when his girlfriend Dee-Dee Bailey (Channique Sterling-Brown) discovers what Joel has been hiding from her – a secret family. “Joel has a wife, Emily, and a young daughter,” says Calum. “He’s going through a divorce but, legally, she’s not his ex-wife yet.

Emily turns up out of the blue wanting to finalise the divorce and Dee-Dee sees it all on the CCTV – it all unravels then. “I think Joel had been waiting for the right time to tell her and it’s not come.

So the longer he’s waited, the more it seems like he’s deliberately deceived Dee-Dee. Joel’s dug a huge hole and it doesn’t look good,” he continues. “Joel needs to do his grovelling, he absolutely needs to do his grovelling and he needs to make it up to her.” Before Calum joined Coronation Street, he starred in Waterloo Road, Hollyoaks and Holby City - but Calum has also worked a lot of non-acting jobs too. "I worked festivals for a year in 2022,” Calum says. “I did this paella stand and it was amazing, I'd gone from being locked inside to being at a festival five days a week. “But I was a bit down because if you're working class and northern, all you want to do is something on Coronation Street.

I thought: 'It's just not going to happen'.Then I was selling cars, I was rubbish at it and I didn't enjoy it.” While Joel is in a world of trouble with his girlfriend, actor Calum says his real-life partner couldn’t have been happier for him when he got the job on Coronation Street after not landing a role for two years. “My girlfriend Roberta is incredible,” says Calum. “When I told her I got the role, she was screaming and crying.