Will Mellor was hours away from quitting acting before landing Mr Bates role

07 February 2024 , 19:27

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Will Mellor was ready to quit acting before landing a role in Mr Bates Vs The Post Office (Image: ITV)

Will Mellor was ready to quit acting the day before he landed a role in Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

The star, 47, had become disillusioned after a number of failed auditions and decided to focus on being a presenter. But his agent rang to say ITV was offering him the role of Lee Castleton, a postmaster wrongly accused of theft and fraud in the Post Office’s Horizon IT scandal.

Will, who is married to dancer Michelle McSween, said: “The day before I got the phone call from my agent about Mr Bates I was gonna give it up. I swear on my life. I said to my missus, ‘I don’t think I want to keep acting. It’s just not happening’. I’m hosting this thing called Cops Gone Bad and was thinking I might go down that route and do more presenting, factual stuff.”

Will, who plays Harvey Gaskell in Corrie, has been an actor for 35 years but he did not have to audition for the role of Lee, whose wife Lisa is played by Amy Nuttall. He said: “It’s been the biggest drama I’ve ever done and the biggest drama of the last 10 years. You don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, so don’t give up.”

The father of two, who also starred in comedy Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps with Ralf Little, joined Lee on Good Morning Britain last Friday. He said is proud of what the Post Office show has achieved, with No10 forced to compensate postmasters.

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On the Two Pints with Will and Ralf podcast, he added: “We knew people would talk about it because it was a true story. But you could not even imagine how big it’s gone.” Mr Bates vs The Post Office averaged 9.8 million viewers last month and had a larger audience than Downton Abbey and Line of Duty’s last series.

Mark Jefferies