The Chesney Brown actor has also previously opened up about the road to true love with his now-wife and becoming a dad
Some fans may be surprised to know that Coronation Street’s Sam Aston isn’t the only soap star in his family, where he is one of a huge nine siblings.
The actor is famed for playing Chesney Brown in the ITV soap. Viewers have watched Chesney – and Sam – grow up on screen, with it now 22 years since his first appearance on the cobbles.
Sam was just 10-years-old when he was cast in the ITV soap as the son of Cilla Battersby-Brown and the half-brother of Fiz Stape – and the character was named after 90s popstar Chesney Hawkes.
Over the years, Sam’s character has been involved in a whole host of storylines – from being held hostage to becoming a dad of quads, to now being a doting husband to Gemma and dad to Joseph and the quads.
And, while Sam may have joined Corrie in 2003, it wasn’t his first acting role. The actor, now 31, made his television debut at the age of five, as an extra in Eddie Mountain – after joining the Carol Godby Theatre Workshop in Bury.
He also appeared in Where the Heart Is and The Bill before joining the ITV soap. And, just a year into his time on the cobbles, Sam picked up Best Newcomer at the National Television Awards.
One of Sam’s sisters, Emily, even appeared in Corrie as Becky Palmer from 1996 to 1997, while his brother Joseph was the second actor to play Tommy Duckworth back in 2000. His other brother Thomas is also an actor and has appeared in episodes of Casualty and The Bill.
Previously speaking about his busy family life on-screen and how he manages, Sam told the Manchester Evening News: “Because I grew up in a big family, I’ve always been used to the chaos. I’ve got five sisters and three brothers so I’m used to a lot of people being around in the house, children and all sorts…”
Sam is also married to yoga teacher and birth doula, Briony. The pair said ‘I do’ in a stunning Cheshire ceremony in May 2019. The romantic nuptials were held on Stock Farm just on the edge of Tatton Park and Sam said he was ‘the luckiest man alive’.
Sam took to one knee and proposed in the summer of 2017 in front of over 250 people at the annual charity golf dinner that he hosts with co-stars Alan and Andy Whyment at the Worsley Park Marriott Hotel in Salford. The couple have known each other since they were young and started chatting on MSN as smitten teenagers. “Briony and I met when I was about 15 or 16,” Sam previously told the Mirror. “We got together, but we were very young.”
Sam ended up ending the relationship, but the pair found a way back to each other years later. He added to the publication: “Three or four years later we were both helping out at the same drama workshop. Carol Godby’s acting school, which is where I started as a youngster.
“I was teaching and Briony was in the room next door. I think she might have given me a funny look when I first walked in, but we soon got past that and straight away we got talking. We went for a meal that night at a country pub and that was it. We’ve been together ever since.”
After tying the knot, the couple have gone on to welcome three children. Sam’s son Sonny James arrived six weeks early on August 11, 2020, just over a year after the couple married while daughter Daisy Josephine arrived in May 2022.
Briony and Sam went on to endure two tragic miscarriages within four months of each other. Briony previously explained that their sad loss of one of their babies was the result of ‘Vanishing Twin Syndrome’, a condition in which one of the babies stops growing and the mother’s body then absorbs the embryo and tissue.
The midwife discovered Briony had been expecting non-identical twins – developing in two separate amniotic sacs with their own placentas- after locating the lost twin’s remaining amniotic sac during the scan.
“If we hadn’t had the early scan, I wouldn’t even have known,” she added: “But it does explain why I was so sick and tired this time around compared to my other pregnancies.”
It was then in 2024 that Sam and Briony revealed they were loving parents to another baby girl. “Welcome to the world…Hazel Marie Aston. 07.05.24 8lbs 15oz,” they wrote alongside pictures from Hazel’s arrival, including Briony’s water birth in a large pool. Another sweet photo showed older siblings Sonny and Daisy holding a candle towards the umbilical cord and placenta as they welcomed their newest sibling into the world.
