Dame Maureen Lipman would become a "miserable old bugger" if she retired.
Dame Maureen Lipman does not want to retire
The 77-year-old actress - who was married to Jack Rosenthal from 1973 until his death in 2004 and has children Adam and Amy with him - has had a decades-long career on screen but joined the cast of 'Coronation Street' in 2018 as Evelyn Plummer and explained that she took on the big job because she likes having a routine.
She told Healthy Living magazine: "I've seen so many friends and loved ones struck down, and when you're in this decade I believe you just have to think: let's go for it,. I'm not living the life of someone who's been grief-stricken twice. I'm not living that life. I'm up and about, and when I'm not I'll probably be a miserable old bugger. I like having a set place to go otherwise I'd just sit at home listening to Radio 4."
The 'Celebrity Gogglebox' star enjoys the "steady" nature of being in a soap opera and recently did a show with some of her industry peers, whom she also hinted are showing no signs of slowing down at this stage in their life.
She said: "I like the steadiness of it and the fact I have to keep learning. It's good for my brain: I'm not a crossword or sudoku person. We're living longer and we do have a good, long career span... "We're made of pretty strong stuff. I did a show with Gyles Brandreth and DameJudi Dench at the Palladium and it was a stage full of dames. Eileen Atkins at 88, Sheila Hancock at 90, straight from the hospital where she'd been having pneumonia, Patricia Routledge there at 94.
"We don't bow out gracefully - we go on until somebody closes the stage door on us."