Award-winning actress Brenda Blethyn has been a master of her craft for decades. When she stepped down from her iconic role playing DCI Vera Stanhope on the ITV series Vera this year after 14 successful seasons, she thought she would never work again. However, the Kent-born star could not have been more wrong.

The star said in a recent interview with Hello: "I didn't think the phone would ever ring, but it's been ringing off the hook.” Before long, the screen legend landed a role alongside Andrea Riseborough in the drama film Dragonfly. Reflecting on marking her milestone 80th birthday this February, she stated: "I don't feel 80. When you're young, and you think of 80, you're in a bath chair. But that's not the case, thank goodness."

The star also told the magazine she wanted to run a half-marathon, having completed the London Marathon three times between 2002 and 2004 for charity in aid of Children with Leukaemia.

Looking at doing a half-marathon, Brenda said: "I'll see what the trainer says. Sometimes I didn't feel like doing it, and if I didn't answer the door, he'd shout through the letterbox, 'I know you're in there.’”

In another big move for Brenda in her 80th year, she’s appeared on the highly anticipated Channel 4 drama series A Woman of Substance.

“If you were casting A Woman of Substance, this fashionista, this richest woman in the world, who's the first person who would spring to mind? Brenda Blethyn?" The star quipped.

She played the housemaid-turned-business-mogul Emma Harte who battles with her own children to keep the empire she built from the ground up. Brenda was commended for the role, but has always been self-deprecating in interviews.

The star, who has admitted she used to suffer with imposter syndrome, said: "We were very poor growing up, but my mum and dad always used to say: 'You're as good as anybody else, and if you work hard, you can achieve it.’”