Tony (Sean Cernow)

[Perdita]

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A new character turns up on the cobbles of Coronation Street this week - and he may seem very familiar to TV viewers. New face Tony will be seen as a friend of Ed Bailey's and will be embroiled in a big winter storyline in the coming weeks.

Tony is played by Oldham actor Sean Cernow and will be seen on screen from Monday night (November 20) when he appears in the house of Ed, who is played by Trevor Michael George. Viewers will get to find out more about Tony and how he becomes tied up in a web of deceit in Ed's life in future episodes.

And if you're wondering where you've seen Sean before, he has been in some of the biggest blockbuster series of recent times with starring roles in fantasy drama House of the Dragon for HBO and The Witcher on Netflix. He also appeared in the BBC's most recent version of Great Expectations.

Corrie fans may also recognise Sean from being in Weatherfield before as well. While Tony is a brand new character, Sean himself has appeared twice before on the soap in smaller roles.

He first appeared in 2008 as an unnamed drug dealer. But in 2018 he returned to play Phil Warriner, another dodgy bloke who terrorised the characters of girlfriends Kate Connor and Rana Habeeb.

He also had repeated roles in Emmerdale, with his most recent appearance as another troublemaker, drug dealer Karl Matthewson in 2021.

Sean, 46, from Oldham, is excited to have his biggest Corrie role to date though in the gripping new storyline with Tony and Ed that will play out in the run-up to Christmas.

Sean tells the MEN: "I hope people are really going to like Tony, he's dead sweet and lovely. He has a past though and is an old friend of Ed's. At first he thinks 'brilliant, Ed is helping me to get over the past', but what he doesn't realise is that the saint could actually be the sinner."

Sean had often joked with friends in the past what his dream storyline would be on Corrie. He laughs: "Because I always end up playing the bad guys, I've said in the past I'd love a punch up on the cobbles. Viewers will have to wait and see if that happens with Tony."

Sean says it's was great to film "on his own doorstep" in Manchester, after flying all around the world in recent years to film on blockbuster productions. He said: "It's been pretty insane doing House of the Dragon in Portugal and Spain, and then doing The Witcher in London.

"I have people messaging me from all different corners of the globe wanting to talk about Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon it's wild. You should see some of the DMs I get from fans of The Witcher."

It's been a brilliant run of dramas for Sean, who admits that during lockdown he felt that his acting career might be over. He says: "I was in a real dark place for a long, long time. Lockdown just compounded that.

"I thought I'd give acting up, I thought how am I going to survive this? Then all of a sudden this wall of work came out of nowhere.

"I never thought in a million years I'd come out of lockdown and I'd work with the people I have done on shows like House of the Dragon, The Witcher, and most recently I got the second season of Screw. I'm also in a big TV Christmas special too.

"I got this on Coronation Street and it was brilliant to work on such an iconic machine of a show, that will no doubt outlive everyone in Manchester just on the cult appeal of it alone.

"It's so well written and the performances are fantastic."