Gaynor Faye details major ‘positive side of menopause’: ‘you gain some power’

Gaynor Faye has stopped people-pleasing in midlife.

The 55-year-old actress explains that one of the major positives of reaching the menopause is that she has stopped caring so much about what others think.

In an interview with Woman's Weekly magazine, Gaynor said, "I'm a bit of a people pleaser and the positive side of the menopause is that you stop giving a s***!”

"You gain some power because you don't care so much what other people think any more,” she added.

Gaynor features in the new film Hot Flash, which is about a mum who goes viral after launching into a rant about launching a menopause app and hopes that her first feature film since 1999 makes middle-aged women feel more "visible."

The former Coronation Street star said, "Hot Flash is Jan's (Birley, writer) first film and it's my first film for years, there are lots of firsts.”

She further mentioned, "I think people will really enjoy it. I hope it makes women of my age more visible and make me a bit more visible too, because you do reach a point where you get bypassed and I want to change that."

Gaynor has been concentrating on writing since the death of her mother Kay Mellor, the scribe behind TV shows such as Fat Friends and The Syndicate.

She explained how she was taken aback when her father Anthony asked to take over Kay's Rollem Productions company. "I felt so out of my depth.”

"I've had to learn how to do it, but it's been wonderful to keep my mum's legacy going and support the new writers that she wanted to bring on. She was always about giving back and helping the next generation,” she recalled.

Gaynor has also been adjusting to being an empty nester as her children Ollie, 25, and Lily, 22, who she has with long-term partner Mark Pickering, have moved out of the family's Leeds home. "It was hard at first, it was very quiet, so I've filled the house with clothes!”

"Every wardrobe is full of my stuff. And Ollie's room is now my office, so I can write at home,” Gaynor Faye said of how she slowly dealt with her children growing up and moving out.