Career: Walters' first acting job was at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre, where she caught the eye of playwright Alan Bleasdale - the beginning of many collaborations. She appeared in his first stage success, Scully, in 1974, and in Boys from the Blackstuff in 1980, a year after making her TV debut in Victoria Wood's Talent. She reunited with Wood in the series Wood and Walters, and reprised her stage role in Educating Rita on the big screen, earning an Oscar nomination. Walters has worked steadily ever since. Her most notable projects include Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Pat and Margaret, Mamma Mia! and the Harry Potter films. She was awarded an OBE in 1999, gained a second Oscar nomination for Billy Elliot in 2000, and won a Bafta (her seventh) in 2010 for her performance in TV drama Mo.

Career: Since becoming an actor he had stints as a theatre director (running the Little Theatre Company in Bristol and directing the premiere of Raymond Briggs' 'When The Wind Blows' at the Whitehall Theatre, London), taught drama at RADA Central and Rose Bruford College, and written plays. His TV roles include Z Cars, Up Pompeii, Bergerac, Casualty, Boys from the Blackstuff, Terry & Julian and Heartbeat. But it was as the incredibly geeky Roy Cropper on Coronation Street that he is best known. He has appeared on the famous cobbles since 1995.