Coronation Street’s Ben star Aaron McCusker reveals original role he auditioned for

Coronation Street’s Aaron McCusker has joined the ITV cobbles as Eva Price’s partner Ben Driscoll

Coronation Street’s Aaron McCusker has revealed the original role he auditioned for before landing his Ben Driscoll part.

It was announced over the summer that Weatherfield favourite Eva, played by Catherine Tyldesley, would be making a huge comeback as the landlady of The Rovers Return.

However, on Monday night’s episode, Eva wasn’t alone as she was joined by partner Ben, played by Aaron, 46, and his interfering mother Maggie, played by Pauline McLynn.

Talking about joining the cobbles, Aaron revealed that he originally auditioned for the role of Todd Grimshaw, which is currently played by Gareth Pierce.

Speaking at a recent press day, Aaron admitted this was his sixth time auditioning for the ITV soap and he was delighted to have finally landed a role.

The Shameless star said of landing his Ben role: “I was in a play in Dublin and my agent phoned me saying they wanted to see me for this.

“I got very excited as I’ve auditioned for Coronation Street, this was my sixth time!

“Every time it wasn’t always for a lead role, I think the last role was for 14 episodes. I auditioned for the part of Todd back in the day!”

Aaron added of his feedback for the other auditions: “My agent would always do that phone call: ‘Aw, it didn’t go your way, they really really love you but they want to hold out for something bigger.’ I was like ‘yeah, whatever, I’ll believe it when I see it!’

“They were true to their word! So when they phoned me with this and I knew it was to be landlord of the Rovers, I thought: ‘Well, you can’t get much bigger than that!'”

Aaron recalled that during the auditions, he was up against four other actors, and he usually sees them at other auditions.

The actor then went on to joke that his “nemesis” in the acting world is Emmett J Scanlan as they always get auditions for the same role.

Aaron quipped: “My nemesis is Emmett Scanlan! Me and Emmett are always up for the same things and he always gets them!

“But I knew Emmett was working this time and he wasn’t on the list [for the role of Ben]!”

Coronation Street continues on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8pm on ITV and ITV X.