Julie Hesmondhalgh is one of Britain’s most loved actresses, she plays roles for stage and screen that tackle important issues and reach out to the hearts and minds of audiences everywhere. Her roles in drama have included sexual violence, the calamity of hate crimes, the representation of transgender people, exploring the right to die and more recently, exposing one of the most widespread miscarriages of justice in British history, The Post Office Scandal. This hit ITV series, Mr. Bates versus the Post Office, has had an unprecedented reaction forcing new political urgency to resolve this scandal. In theatre her work has responded to war, austerity, cancer, mental health, refugees and currently, her personal and emotionally courageous, one woman show, These We Love, a hymn to her working-class childhood. Julie’s work as an artist is part and parcel of her activism for positive change, a fairer society and equality, including access to the Arts. Whilst her famous and ground breaking television role as Hayley Cropper, a transgender woman in Coronation Street, often dominates her career, her work is bigger than this very famous soap opera. Julie is also full of fun and she understands the importance of daftness. She thinks deeply about hope and what it means in how we navigate our lives. We talk about finding her dad's diaries, the huge investment in Arts for the privately educated but devastating cuts in state education and what that means in a democracy. We discuss the Arts in relation to mental health, being able to connect, not feel alone and to combat fear with joy. Julie discusses why hope and optimism are essential in personal and political struggle and how the Arts encourages us all to thrive.

Photos courtesy of Julie Hesmondhalgh

Series Audio Editor - Joey Quan.

Series Music - Courtesy of Barry J. Gibb

Closed Captions are added to all interviews in this series. Read only, text versions of every interview, news, reviews and your host are here: www.canartsaveus.com

Discover:

Julie Hesmondhalgh www.loucoulson.co.uk/talent/julie-hesmondhalgh

Arts Emergency www.arts-emergency.org

Take Back Theatre www.takebacktheatre