Vicky McClure has said she nearly ended her acting career over a relationship.
The Line Of Duty star, 35, said that she was in an “unhappy relationship” when she was younger, and with her career flailing, she gave up acting for a short while because of her partner.
McClure told the podcast How To Fail With Elizabeth Day: “I was young. I gave up acting. I gave up everything for a whole year just because of him.
“I thought, ‘I need to just focus on being here’ and I moved to live in a place where I was just unhappy.
“But it was all because I thought it was making him happy.
“I look back and go, wow, what an idiot. But it’s great because I’ve learnt from it and I’ll never do it again.”
McClure said she was struggling to get work at the time, so she thought “sod it, I’ll give it all up”.
McClure, who plays Detective Inspector Kate Fleming in BBC crime drama Line Of Duty, did not name her ex-partner.
The actress, who made her name starring in This Is England ’86 – for which she won a best actress TV Bafta – and its follow-ups This Is England ’88 and This Is England ’90, has also had roles in The Replacement and Broadchurch.
McClure is now in a relationship with actor and producer Jonny Owen, 47, and she said: “I always say to Jonny ‘I wish I’d met you years ago’.
“I’d love to have spent more time with him than the people I did spend time with.”