Coronation Street’s Roy Cropper star David Neilson has been married to his wife Jane for more than 50 years and she has played a huge part in helping shape his soap character
Star of Coronation Street David Neilson, who has been Roy Cropper’s loyal sidekick since 1995, enjoys a lovely off-screen romance with his encouraging spouse. With his character being falsely jailed twice, the actor’s latest plotline on the cobbles has been extremely dramatic!
With one viewer predicted on X, “I feel this will end when Lauren turns at the trial as an unannounced witness!” followers are already conjecturing that a plot surprise might ensure Roy’s release. While we await the drama’s development, let’s look at 75-year-old David’s life outside of the soap opera.
David and his wife Jane Neilson have been happily married for over 50 years, and she’s played a significant role in shaping Roy into the complex character we know today. In a 2009 interview with the Mirror, David shared that he’d secretly made Roy autistic, crediting his wife, a special needs teacher, for her invaluable insights.
David revealed: “Roy was a psychopath. He was stalking Deirdre and was a bit scary. It’s nice to play psychos but they don’t stay around too long. My wife is a special needs teacher and she worked with people with autism. She said Roy could have Asperger’s syndrome, making him socially inept, rather than menacing. Nobody really knew what Asperger’s was back in 1995, so it’s my wife I owe it to.”
“But it’s never mentioned in the story and it shouldn’t be,” he went on. Roy is a person, and a label does not make him any better. However, I believe he has it. It provides me with something to play with and offers him justification for his actions. Roy has so many quirky qualities, which I find endearing about people.”
David and Jane are the fortunate parents of two beautiful grandchildren and an adult son named Daniel. Since 2002, they have been dividing their time between Spain and England and leading a happy life.
In a previous chat with the Mirror, David confessed: “I need to get away from Roy and be myself and they don’t know Roy in Barcelona. If I’m in Spain for a few days I forget what I do for a living, which is the important thing. It means when I come back and someone shouts ‘Roy’, for a moment I forget they’re actually talking to me. And it’s only a couple of hours on the plane so I can commute to Manchester easily enough.”
Demonstrating that he shares similar intellectual interests like his character Roy, David added: “Another reason we moved was for excitement. I like to do different things and it’s been good to learn a language and get into a different culture. Our son Daniel had left for university and we were in Bristol in a big house and we thought, ‘What shall we do?'”
You can catch Coronation Street every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8pm on ITV and ITVX.
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