Fans went into meltdown last week over Michelle Keegan’s incredible performance in new Netflix drama, Fool Me Once.
The show – which is an adaptation of a Harlan Coben thriller – landed on New Year’s Day, with fans making the nail-biting eight-part series soar to number one on Netflix.
Taking to social media, one fan wrote, “Michelle Keegan is not just beautiful, she’s a proper top tier actor”, while another added, “Take a bow, brilliant, stunning and thrilling – give this lady an Oscar”.
The former Coronation Street star’s husband Mark Wright also heaped praise on his wife, writing on social media, “I can’t tell you how happy and proud I am for this incredible woman I call my wife… Watching her leaving the soap that made her over a decade ago, trying so hard to be taken seriously as an actor, moving into big serious dramas as her career has moved forward has been such an important thing to her.”
Michelle, 36 – who plays the lead part of Maya Stern alongside TV legend Joanna Lumley – thanked fans for their support, saying, “So overwhelmed with all your amazing messages about Fool Me Once. Thank you, thank you.”
And insiders say that Michelle has been inundated with new exciting offers, with a source telling Closer, “Michelle’s the TV ‘it-girl’ of the moment right now. Since Fool Me Once, her team have been contacted by producers and directors wanting to chat about future projects, and Netflix are really impressed by the show’s success. Michelle’s on cloud nine – it seems the only way is up for her with all the opportunities coming her way.
“With the show airing worldwide, she’s now on the map in America and friends around her think it’s only a matter of time before she stars in a US drama and cracks the States.”
While the majority of Fool Me Once was filmed in Manchester, Michelle has spent much of her seven-year marriage to former TOWIE star Mark overseas – jetting between South Africa, Nepal and Malaysia for the BBC hit Our Girl, and also heading out to Australia for drama Ten Pound Poms.
Meanwhile, in 2017, Mark, 36, moved to LA to present TV show Extra, but quit in 2020 after admitting he had become too homesick, with Michelle describing their long-distance marriage as “difficult”.
But the couple have recently been reunited and finished renovating their multi-million pound Essex mansion last year, where they spent a cosy Christmas.
And the source now says that while Mark is thrilled for his wife’s prospects, he has been worrying about the possibility of living separate lives again.
The source says, “Mark is totally over the moon for Michelle and incredibly proud of her. But at the back of his mind, there is a little niggling worry that any big jobs she gets could take her away from him. He’s been open about how hard he finds it to be apart from her, so he’s bracing himself for potentially spending a chunk of this year apart from her yet again.”
But the source adds, “Michelle knows that she and Mark may have to do long distance again in the near future – it’s the nature of her job – and of course any offer she has would leave her feeling torn as she obviously doesn’t want to be separated from Mark
“But she’s also keen to ride this wave and grab any chances that come her way. She and Mark have been pulled apart by work commitments before and she knows that, should it come to it, they are strong enough to get through that again and again.”