\n
(Image credit: Helen Williams\/Shutterstock)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
As the star keeps the momentum going literally, so too does her career. Something which came as a surprise to her after she stepped away from the long-running ITV detective series, Vera. <\/em><\/p>\n“I didn’t think the phone would ever ring, but it’s been ringing off the hook. I didn’t know this was going to happen.”<\/p>\n\n Since leaving Vera, <\/em>Brenda starred in the 2025 film, Dragonfly <\/em>– and her sumptuous new Channel 4 period drama, A woman of Substance, <\/em>premieres on Wednesday, March 11.<\/p>\nThe series, based on Barbara Taylor Bradford\u2019s best-selling novel, cast Brenda as the older version of Emma Harte, a housemaid who becomes a powerful businesswoman.<\/p>\n
Ever humble, Brenda jokes about feeling “surprised” to have been offered such a role – much different from the gritty roles we\u2019ve seen her take in films like Secrets & Lies<\/em>.<\/p>\nShe said, “If you were casting A Woman of Substance<\/em>, this fashionista, this richest woman in the world, who’s the first person who would spring to mind? Brenda Blethyn?”<\/p>\nHowever, there was plenty about the role that deeply resonated – including the reality of being working class but aspiring for more.<\/p>\n
“I could understand Emma’s struggle and how important it was just to get a couple more shillings a week. My mum had three jobs to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
“We had a rather Victorian upbringing. You’re taught that if you want anything, you’ve got to work for it. Nothing’s going to be handed to you on a plate, especially if you’re working-class.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.womanandhome.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“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.” Brenda Blethyn is not ready to let hitting the milestone age define her – or limit her. In fact, the Vera star is so busy that turning 80 this February became […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2321381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2321380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Brenda-Blethyn-on-running-a-half-marathon-at-80-Ill.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2321380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2321382,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321380\/revisions\/2321382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2321381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2321380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2321380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2321380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}