The Showcase: A City Academy Podcast

“I never wanted to be an actor,” says Tracie Bennett. It is an unexpected admission from a performer whose four-decade career has earned her two Olivier Awards and taken her across television, film and some of the world’s most celebrated stages.

Speaking on our podcast, The Showcase, Tracie looks back on a career that appears carefully plotted from the outside but was, in reality, shaped by chance, curiosity and a willingness to take the next opportunity. She had originally planned to become a stunt performer, training in martial arts, horse riding, scuba diving and even working towards her pilot’s licence.

Acting intervened when she was cast as Sharon Gaskell in Coronation Street. The demands of the role, and the practicalities of ensuring one of the programme’s principal actors, brought her stunt training to an abrupt end. It also placed her alongside some of British television’s most formidable women, including Pat Phoenix and Doris Speed. From them, she absorbed a lasting lesson in discipline, humour and professionalism: turn up, know the work and get on with it.

That candour runs throughout the conversation. Tracie is open about the fear that accompanies creative work, even after four decades in the industry, and dismisses the idea that experience makes an actor immune to self-doubt. “I just try my best and get on with it,” she says. “I’ve really been lucky so far.”

What has changed is her ability to keep going despite that uncertainty. She talks about resisting the pressure to build a neat, easily defined career, moving between comedy, tragedy, musicals, television and film even when that versatility made her difficult to categorise. “Everything has taught me something,” she says. For Tracie, the work has always been more interesting than the label attached to it.

She is equally frank about reviews. “If they say you’re good, you don’t believe it. If they say you’re bad, you worry about what the audience is thinking.” Her solution is to listen to the director, trust the work and shut out everything that might interfere with it. “If you’re sensitive, like creatives are, it’s too much in your head—and it will stop you from being creative.” 

These reflections are best heard in Tracie’s own words, delivered with all the humour, sharpness and honesty that make this conversation such a pleasure.

Warm, funny and wonderfully candid, the episode offers a rare insight into the person behind an extraordinary body of work. Tracie may be a two-time Olivier Award winner, but she speaks about acting as an ongoing process rather than something she has mastered. She remains curious, willing to take risks and prepared to begin each role without assuming she already has the answer.

Her advice is characteristically direct: “Be brave. Give it your best shot.” But perhaps the most revealing lesson is to choose what is right for you as a person, rather than viewing every decision through the narrow lens of a career. It is an outlook that has allowed Tracie to keep experimenting, keep learning and remain unmistakably herself.