Brenda Blethyn has lead ITV’s Vera since 2011, and revealed that one major realisation about her life sparked her desire to leave the series

Beloved Vera star Brenda Blethyn, 78, has described in detail why she’s leaving the show.

Brenda joined the ITV series back when it first started in 2011, as title role DCI Vera Stanhope. Now, the show is coming to an end, with two finale episodes airing on January 1 and 2, followed by the documentary ‘Vera, Farewell Pet,’ on January 3 at 9pm.

The Outside Edge actress revealed that thoughts of missing time with her family – particularly husband Michael Mayhew – were vital to her big decision. “It was a lovely summer back in 2023, and I came to realise I hadn’t had a summer with my husband for 14 years,” she shared.

“Naturally, I missed my family. And my dog Jack, although he was with me in the North East, but I didn’t see him much because I was working all day.”

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Brenda added: “I love my Vera family, but I love my other family too. And when you consider I was already thinking about packing work in when I was offered the job back in 2010, 14 series of working on Vera is pretty good going! I wasn’t actually going to do any more after series 13, but of course ITV said they needed to wind the series up. So I said: ‘Oh, go on then, I’ll do a couple more episodes.’”

Brenda also shared how she felt about shooting the final ever episode, teasing: “It was very appropriate that the last day of filming was scheduled to take place in the police incident room where so much of the drama has happened. I think our producer Will Nicholson contrived that – incidentally, that is not where the final scene of the episode takes place.”

She divulged: “You could hear a pin drop when we were filming. Then when I heard ‘that’s a wrap’, I was emotional. As, indeed, Vera would have been. There were a lot of people behind the cameras and at the end I thanked everybody. I said: ‘We’re all as important as one another.’

“I might be the one playing the title character, but it’s only an ingredient in a great big pot. And all of the ingredients are necessary, everyone contributes to it, and it’s the sum of all of those parts that made Vera a success.”

This isn’t the first time Brenda has given a tiny hint about what to expect in the Vera finale. In an emotional chat with RadioTimes this month, she revealed that one particular scene with Jon Morrison, who plays DC Kenny Lockhart, was especially poignant. “One scene involved Vera and DC Kenny Lockhart, played by Jon Morrison. It broke my heart when I read the script and it was emotional to film,” she shared.

Alongside Brenda’s hints, we know that the gripping finale will see Detective Vera called to investigate a body found by the Tyne, entangling her in a case of “a broken relationship, secret love, grudges, regret and fraud.”