'Coronation Street' star set to take acting lessons (SPOILERS AHEAD)

A long-running star 'Coronation Street' is to take acting lessons when she leaves the popular soap .

Michelle Keegan's alter-ego Tina McIntyre will be seen plunging from a balcony at the builders' yard after a dramatic confrontation with her killer tonight.

The 26-year-old told Radio Times magazine: "I'm having more training, which I'm doing for confidence. I've been playing one character for over six years and I need to refresh.

"So I'm having one-to-one classes and some dialect coaching for accents."

Of the dialect coaching, she said: "I've got a very strong Manchester accent and it can be easier to get a part if you're able to neutralise it. So that's what I'd like to do."

In the run-up to her exit, former 'The Only Way Is Essex 'star Mark Wright helped Keegan with her lines by "playing Rita", but the actress said that she would not want to present a show with her fiance because "he'd show me up".

"He's a lot better than me because that's his job. So, not yet," she added. "I'd need more training if I was to do presenting."

She said of her future: "I want to do some more TV, because the thought of going out on to a stage petrifies me. I'd like to do something with Ricky Gervais - I love his sense of humour and his writing. And I've always wanted to do a period drama."

Keegan has previously revealed how she was shocked when she discovered that producers were killing her off, as she thought that she would be able to return to the ITV soap if she wanted.

But asked whether she would have liked to revisit her role, she said: "Maybe for the character, but not for me. Katherine Kelly [who played Becky McDonald] told me I'd know when the time was right to leave and I do think I've made the right decision.

"But Tina was a great character and I'll miss her. And I also think that Corrie is going to miss its feisty little barmaid."

She said of the strong female characters in Weatherfield: "It's something very particular to being a northern woman.

"My mum is certainly like that - she's a very strong person. And with Corrie, a lot of the humour comes from the woman bossing the man around.

"People find that hilarious. And when there are storylines that feature people having affairs, it's always the woman who is left to pick up the pieces and put the family back together again."