Maxine Peake’s real reason for leaving London after 13 years: ‘I can’t live here’

Maxine Peake has audiences hooked as Jenna Reid in Apple’s latest hit drama, Last Seen, which was filmed in Australia.

It’s a long way away from home for Maxine, who lives in Salford, Greater Manchester, having left for the northern city in 2009 after living in London for 13 years.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph in 2011, Maxine revealed that she moved to Salford for family, but in an interview with The Diary in 2013, she revealed she had an ulterior motive.

“I wanted to come back up north,” she shared. “I don’t know, maybe I’ve got a slightly romantic idea about Salford but I went to college there.“

The 52-year-old continued: “I used to be in the Communist Party and I got slightly involved with the Working Class Movement Library again. I thought, ‘It’s as good a place as any’.

“I didn’t want to move to Manchester and I didn’t want to do the Chorlton, Didsbury thing – not that I could afford to live there, so I don’t know who I’m kidding. But I thought, ‘Yeah, why not Salford?'”

However, she joked that Salford’s residents weren’t happy with her arrival, saying: “People say, ‘I know, you’ve moved to Salford because of the BBC’. Not at all. And, in fact, most people in Salford aren’t particularly over the moon about it. It’s people moving up. It’s not really creating new jobs.

“And will most people live in Salford? Won’t they all live in the more media-popular areas like Didsbury, and places like that, and commute?”

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Another reason for the move was so that Maxine could actually afford to buy her own property. In 2018, she told the Daily Telegraph: “I was looking to buy a flat in London and it was madness – there were sealed bids and gazumping and these were flats where I was swiping away hypodermic needles. I thought, I can’t live here. So I moved up north and never went back.”

Maxine Peake’s romantic life

Maxine has been in a long-term relationship with art director Pawlo Wintoniuk for 25 years, with the pair making the move from London to Salford together.

Speaking about her partner, whom she has called her “soulmate”, Maxine told The Guardian: “He’s better informed than I am, and he thinks I’m a lot better informed than I am. Which makes me laugh.”

© David M. Benett

The couple don’t have children of their own, having attempted to start their own family with the help of IVF.

However, this has suited the actress, due to her busy schedule. She explained: “We have talked about adopting, but then something comes along and I go, ‘Oh, but I’ve got this project to do’. Somebody said yesterday, ‘Your work’s your babies,’ and I thought, ‘Yeah, it is.'”