Matt Milburn disappointed not to work with famous co-star brother in Coronation Street

Coronation Street’s Matt Milburn has discussed how he wished he had the opportunity to work with his soap star brother Greg Wood.

Matt, who has featured on the ITV soap on and off for eight years, is the real-life brother of Greg, who portrayed cobbles gangster Rick Neelan.

Evil Rick Neelan’s life ended in 2019, when Gary Windass (Mikey North) murdered him and buried his body in the woods after a violent showdown.

Matt recently reprised his role as footballer Tommy Orpington, returning to Weatherfield for an affair storyline with Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford).

Suffice to say Matt loves working with his Corrie co-stars, but that hasn’t stopped him wondering what it would’ve been like if Tommy and Rick ever came across each other on the cobbles.

‘Yes, I think my brother is a fantastic actor’, he told us.

‘It’s on my bucket list…to work together at some point. Our paths have just never crossed you know. We’ve both been in sort of three major soaps and other projects and we’ve never actually worked together. So yes, it’s a shame Rick’s not still alive really. My brother told me about the Tommy Oprington character, so that was quite amusing. But yeah, I would have loved it is the answer.’

‘Greg was probably my biggest inspiration I would say. I sort of had no sort of massive force of ever getting into acting. I was going off to do sports journalism’, he added.

‘I’d just been accepted to go to university when I was sort of in my late teens for various college courses. Long story. To cut long story short, Greg was due to do an acting job. I’d seen him do many plays, saw him coming off the stage and the buzz and the adrenaline that he had. I thought, “I want to try that” and I had sort of been in his ear about it. And then he put me forward for a job that he couldn’t do because he just got another job. Didn’t tell me, and so I did this acting job!

‘I was terrible for two weeks, but it gave me that sort of fire in my belly and for the first time in my life, I think at that point, it was actually this is what I wanted to do. Then literally four weeks after that, I got an audition for Hollyoaks. That was my first professional audition and then I ended up being there for three years and that was like my drama school, really. But yeah, my brother was a big inspiration, probably my main inspiration.’

This week in Coronation Street, Steve (Simon Gregson) discovered Tracy’s betrayal with Tommy O.

In upcoming episodes, Tommy will be given an opportunity to work abroad, leaving him with the prospect of choosing between Tracy, or a new life.

‘I think he’s maybe a little bit torn’, Matt said.

‘I think in the back of his mind he probably would want to give it a go. But then at the same time, I think there’s the fear that should he drop his guard and maybe ask her if she wants to go, but if she wasn’t on the same page, he won’t want to get burned again. There’s that as well, I think that he’s fighting with.’

Explaining why Tommy has such great chemistry with Tracy, Matt told us: ‘I think Tommy, he enjoys someone who keeps him on his toes. She’s sharp and doesn’t suffer fools, says exactly what she’s thinking and doesn’t pull any punches. He quite likes that. He’s sharp and his banter is on the witty side as well so they meet in the middle there.

‘For want of a better phrase if she was an easy target there wouldn’t be as big an appeal so yeah he’s drawn to that.’