Karen Blick almost quit acting to be a teacher before landing a role in 'Emmerdale'.
Karen Blick and James Hooton
The 44-year-old star has portrayed Lydia Hart on the ITV soap since September 2016, but before she took on the part she was lecturing acting students at a college in Halifax, and nearly turned her back on a career in front of the camera altogether.
She said: "There were many times I'd considered giving it up. I even trained as a teacher and did a PGCE in 2008.
"It was an absolute dream come true. It was wonderful. I'm a Yorkshire-based actress and I've got a fantastic role in a Yorkshire-based soap.
"I'd been a jobbing actress for 23 years and had landed some decent roles, but it was hard.
"When 'Emmerdale' came along, I was lecturing undergraduate acting students at my old college in Halifax."
Karen is grateful to her husband Simon - who she married in 2011 - for encouraging her to pursue her acting dream.
She said: "We've had conversations over the years where I've said, 'OK, maybe I'll give this up.'
"And he's always said, 'Give it another year, stick at it.' When we got to go to the soap awards together we clinked some champagne glasses and said, 'Can you believe this?' "
Karen's alter-ego Lydia was recently involved in some racy scenes with on-screen boyfriend James Hooton (Sam Dingle) when the pair's characters stripped off - and the actress cut out calorific treats from her diet before baring all in the Dales.
She added to the Sunday Mirror newspaper: "When they first revealed Lydia and Sam were going to streak, I thought the producers were joking.
"We were hugely up for a laugh, so we said we'd do it. Then we found out we had four weeks to prepare, so I stopped eating puddings in the canteen and biscuits on the tea breaks."
Karen recently admitted Lydia had inspired her to take up ballroom dancing for real, after discovering her alter-ego used to be a dancer.
She said: "I have taken up ballroom dancing, through Lydia. I did classes for some of her scenes, and now I've graduated from the beginner class to the intermediate.
"I started to learn as it was Lydia's backstory - she was a ballroom dancer 20-odd years ago."