Coronation Street star Beverley Callard has defended her character’s reaction to son Steve McDonald’s depression storyline.

The 58-year-old actress – who has played Liz McDonald on and off since 1989 – suffered a mental breakdown in 2008 as she herself battled depression.

In the ITV soap when son Steve (Simon Gregson) was diagnosed with depression earlier this year, Liz was dismissive of his condition, but Beverley told The Daily Mirror that her attitude was a good example of what a lot of people with mental illness face in real live.

Coronation Street's Simon Gregson and Beverley Callard as mother and son Liz and Steve McDonald
Liz McDonald’s son Steve has been battling depression in Corrie (ITV)

Beverley said: “That was an enormous storyline in the show and Liz reacted in totally the wrong way.

“The worst way possible… but that is exactly how I’d expect Liz’s character to respond because she would not have any empathy with that sort of thing at all.

“Someone on Twitter said, ‘Beverley Callard shouldn’t have said those things to Simon Gregson.
She should have known better because she’s had depression’.

“But the whole point was to show that still not everyone knows the correct way to react when someone is struggling.

Liz McDonald
Beverley plays Rovers’ landlady Liz McDonald (ITV)

“I loved the way Liz’s character responded because it was so real to her while Steve’s wife Michelle was much more understanding as her character is more empathetic and up to date with things.”

During her own battle with depression Beverley was admitted to the Priory Hospital in London where she stayed for 12 weeks.

She recalled: “It was so extreme my body had gone into almost total shutdown,” she says. “I lay in a bed for days in the foetal position, cut off from everyone.

“I was in a deep, dark hole and my doctor said it was one of the most extreme cases he’d ever had to treat.”

Corrie's Liz McDonald
Corrie’s Liz McDonald can’t understand son Steve’s illness (ITV)

The Corrie star revealed producer Stuart Blackburn consulted her before going ahead with the storyline, as it was so close to what she had been through.

Beverley said: “I reassured Stuart the storyline could not make me ill again. When I fell ill it was something which came from inside me. And I was under a lot of pressure at the time.

“And although filming the scenes would of course make me think about my illness, it couldn’t cause a recurrence.”