With gruelling schedules and intense scrutiny, it's no wonder that many soap stars decide to shun fame.
Acting isn't always a long-term career option and many former soap stars have stepped out of the limelight to support their families and go back to a quieter life.
But one former Coronation Street actor has been found fulfilling a rather normal job, while still enjoying a very successful acting career.
Charles Dale has been discovered to be running his family-owned record shop in the tiny Welsh seaside town of Tenby in Pembrokeshire.
Known for his roles in Casualty, as Big Mac, Chef in '90s dark drama, The Lakes, Coronation Street's Dennis Stringer, recently he's been spotted in ITV big hitters, The Pembrokeshire Murders and Unforgotten.
But between roles, Charles can be found chatting to customers from behind the counter of Dale’s Music as he carries on the family business that's been with the Dales since 1947, when Charles' grandad owned the music shop, and dad Laurie, took the shop on in 1964.
He runs the shop with his sister Linzi and her husband Richard, and as if Charles wasn’t busy enough, he is also a freshly minted Tenby town councillor.
"I look at things and sometimes I think 'that needs fixing," he told Wales Online of his new councillor role. "And I don't know if I can, but I can certainly go in and say, can we fix this? How do we fix this? You know, just strange things, toilets, parking, you know, rubbish. Those little things."
Charles left his beloved Tenby at the age of 17 to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He stayed away for 20 years before being drawn back to his roots when the sense of hiraeth got too much.
The actor spend time travelling the world with theatre productions, acting on Broadway and has a CV full of appearances in British TV classics, from Lovejoy, Touch of Frost and BBC's Sherwood to his larger roles in Corrie, Casualty and The Pembrokeshire Murders, all the while keeping the family shop going alongside his sister, Linzi.
"I try and do different things and I think that has hampered my career to a certain degree," he told the publication. "Because they do like to put you in boxes and if you can find a niche and sit in it that can do you quite a lot of good.
“But, I don't act for any other reason than I enjoy doing it and what's the point of doing something you don't enjoy repeating the same thing over and over again. Certain actors out there that do the same performance every bloody time and you just go 'really?' Try and be somebody different, that's the job."
Even while he spent nine and two years on Casualty and Coronation Street respectively, he still managed to keep things interesting.
"You have to find a balance," he explained. " I thoroughly enjoyed Corrie, I had a very nice time socially, it was great cast, Si Gregson is my son's godfather, you know, Steve McDonald, I had really good mates up there.
“I loved Manchester it's a great city, and then Casualty, for the first four years, I commuted from Cardiff to Bristol, and then just as it was getting to the point where I was like, 'I can't do this anymore.' And then they moved to Cardiff, two minutes from my house so I got to watch my son grow up and that's a real bonus for actors, because we're away. We're not home, that's just the nature of the beast."
Work has been a little quieter for the telly veteran so far this year but the new town councillor doesn’t mind. "It's just as well really. I've got a shop to run," he laughed.
