AFTER four years of playing the most loud-mouthed, brash and bitchy woman Wetherfield had seen in years, actress Suranne Jones was desperate to do something completely different.

She had just stormed down the cobbles of Coronation Street as feisty schemer Karen McDonald for the last time and emerged into the real world armed with a Best Actress gong from the British Soap Awards and one of the highest profiles on television.

That paid off just months later when she won the dramatic lottery with a dream role on stage with Rob Lowe and then a great TV part in Ray Winstone's series Vincent.

And those winnings just kept on rolling in, with a second series of her successful private eye drama starting next month and a packed schedule of work keeping her busy for the next year in some of the biggest drama projects on TV.

Suranne, 27, knows she made all the right choices. She said: "I knew that I had to hold out for a while, and to be patient and also to be brave.

"I knew that I wasn't going to be happy being out of work, if that was what happened, but I knew that I had to b e confident in my own abilities, and that I didn't want to compromise - to take a job just because it was offered.

She added: "I am not a celebrity at all - I'm an actress. The first series of Vincent was also the first TV work I'd done since leaving Corrie.

"When I walked onto the set on day one I was petrified, because here was the huge challenge of making people believe in a totally new and completely different character.

In Vincent, Suranne plays aspiring private investigator Beth alongside veteran hard man Winstone. The drama was a hit last year, and was quickly picked up for series two.

Both she and Winstone are now hoping that rumours of a third series commission are true and she said she loves stepping into the smart business suits and trendy trimmed bob of Beth.

Suranne said: "One of the chief reasons why I decided to do the role was that Ray Winstone was the lead - he had always been a hero of mine, and to me the man is a legend.

"And working with him, well, it couldn't have been easier. Ray is forever cracking jokes and making us all laugh - while being, on then other hand, totally professional.

"We all get on - Ray is an integral part of it all, funny, genuine, loveable, warm and very gifted. And I really don't care if he reads what I've said - it is all true.

"There was one scene we did where we had to be holding hands as the action started, and I could - believe me - feel the energy in him, and I know that some of it passed into me. I could feel the buzz."

"These people are human beings and they get it wrong sometimes. Vincent's team are all slightly dysfunctional - and that's what makes them appealing, I think.

"Slightly... geeky, and not superior to everyone else around us. That's probably why the viewers like them as well. People want to get involved with them."

She said of Beth: "She's very professional, and usually she loves to wear those sorts of 'power suits' that make her look very in control and professional. It's all about the 'image' thing.

"And yes, she does fall for a bloke as the series progresses - and he may not be as appropriate as she thinks he is. Or the man that she wants him to be.

She added: "The great thing about a second - and hopefully potentially a third -series is that you develop the character and also get allowed to show the audience the changes in her.

"Soaps don't really allow you to do that -what your character does, doesn't always seem very logical - it's all at the whim of the writers. He or she can be a perfectly rational person one minute, and a screaming pyromaniac the next."

It'll be a screaming swinger next for Suranne, by the looks of her new project Strictly Confidential. She said: "It sounds amazing. It's all about the world of swinger's clubs - a look at the people who go to them and the girls who work in them.

With her diary full of such high drama, it's a long way from her days as the outspoken and sexually-charged man-eater Karen McDonald on the Street.

After four years as Karen, Suranne bowed out in 2004, earning a Best Actress gong at that year's Soap Awards, with her character storming out of the street after an explosive storyline featuring husband Steve, his illegitimate daughter Amy and Tracy Barlow.

But unlike some soap stars who are so desperate to move on that they burn their bridges and start mocking their former employers, Suranne said she is still a fan and refuses to rule out a return to the Street in the distant future.

She is teaming up with her former co-star John Savident (Fred Elliot) for a panto run of Snow White this Christmas and said she does keep in regular touch with the Weatherfield mafia.

She said: "I love Corrie, and I watch it avidly on my only day off - Sunday. And I still keep in contact with a lot of my mates in the show, but I think that it is all behind me now.

"However, I would never say 'never', and yes, I could always go back, the door has been left open for Karen to return - if I want to - and who knows what the future might bring?

"For the moment, I'm more than happy with things as they are. But I will never ever knock Coronation Street - it gave me a huge chance, and it gave me a lot of confidence as a performer.

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