Beverley Callard has just opened up about some really tough personal news, and it comes right when things should have been going great for her career.
The 68-year-old English actress, best known for her long-running role on Coronation Street, revealed that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer, though she emphasized it was caught early. Callard opened up about the diagnosis while speaking with Patrick Kielty on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show.
Callard recently relocated to Ireland to take on a role in the Dublin-based soap opera Fair City, but she explained that the health news hit her at the worst possible moment, right as she was about to step into her new job.
She told Kielty, “I’d had some tests just before I left the UK and literally 15 to 20 minutes before [her first scene] I was in my dressing room at Fair City, getting ready to go on, and I was quite nervous and thinking, ‘I hope everybody thinks I’m all right, whatever.’”
Then came the call that changed everything.
“And my consultant rang me and said, ‘you’ve got to come back to the UK.’ I said, ‘well I can’t possibly, you know, I’ve just taken a new job I’m away for a month.’”
Callard said she was then given the diagnosis, but made it clear she’s staying positive and focused on getting through treatment. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer. But I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine. My head was a bit mashed for the first few days. It’s very early stages, and I’m along with, you know, thousands of other women as well,” Callard said.
She explained that she will “travel back to the United Kingdom” for a few weeks to get her “lymph nodes and lymph glands and all that” checked, as doctors make sure the cancer hasn’t spread.
Despite the scary news, Callard is already looking ahead and seems determined not to let it derail her return to Fair City. “I need an operation and some radiotherapy, and then I’m coming back to Fair City, so I will be back in just a few weeks,” Callard quipped.