Gary Windass is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Coronation Street, portrayed by Mikey North. The character first appeared on 14 November 2008, along with his parents, Eddie (Steve Huison) and Anna Windass (Debbie Rush).

In the show, the character was romantically involved with Izzy Armstrong (Cherylee Houston), Alya Nazir (Sair Khan) and Sarah Platt (Tina O'Brien). The character was also engaged in feuds with Sarah's brother David Platt (Jack P. Shepherd), Izzy's father Owen Armstrong (Ian Puleston-Davies), and most prominently, with Anna's rapist Pat Phelan (Connor McIntyre).

Gary's story-lines include his conflict with PTSD after joining the army, forming a business partnership with Owen, bonding with his parents' adopted daughter Faye (Ellie Leach), a brief custody battle against ex-girlfriend Tina McIntyre (Michelle Keegan) after she becomes their surrogate and gives birth to Gary and Izzy's son Jake, a close friendship with Faye's biological father Tim Metcalfe (Joe Duttine), helping Sarah's daughter Bethany (Lucy Fallon) overcome her troubles with bullying in school and being subjugated to child grooming and sexual exploitation by her pimp Nathan Curtis (Christopher Harper), a one-night stand with Phelan's daughter Nicola Rubinstein (Nicola Thorp), which results in her giving birth to their son Zack and appointing Faye's boyfriend Seb Franklin (Harry Visinoni) to become his apprentice.

In 2019, Gary became the show's main antagonist when he was revealed to be the culprit who caused the death of Alya's sister-in-law, Rana Habeeb (Bhavna Limbachia), by sabotaging the Underworld Factory roof in his attempt to sort out his debts to loan shark Rick Neelan (Greg Wood). This led to the collapse of the factory roof and Rana being killed from the incident as a result. The character later killed Rick in self-defense when the latter tried to murder him in the woods, subsequently taking over his criminal empire as a result. Soon afterwards, Gary proceeded to establish a relationship with David's colleague Maria Connor (Samia Longchambon), clash with Rana's brother Imran Habeeb (Charlie De Melo) over the circumstances behind his sister's death, become enemies with ex-girlfriend Sarah's boyfriend Adam Barlow (Sam Robertson) after growing jealous of their newfound romance, develop a feud with Maria's love interest Ali Neeson (James Burrows), hospitalise Ali's brother Ryan (Ryan Prescott) after beating him up for unintentionally stealing his money and blackmail his own client Derek Milligan (Craige Els) into taking part in his scheme to invest the factory - which ultimately sparked the event of Derek instigating a lethal Christmas siege that culminates in his own death, though not after accidentally killing Ali's stepfather Robert Preston (Tristan Gemmill) and shooting David's wife Shona Platt (Julia Goulding) in the resulting impact.

The character of Gary was created as part of a new family unit that new producer Kim Crowther introduced to the soap opera, consisting of a mother, father, son and uncle. They were originally billed as a storyline device for the established character David Platt. An ITV spokesperson said of the character and his onscreen family: "The Windass family are very rough and ready, always ducking and diving. Early on they get involved with David Platt when he helps to fit a new kitchen in the Windass family home. However, Anna thinks the work is shoddy and refuses to pay for it. David goes round, rips out the kitchen and sets fire to it outside the family’s house." fellow actress Debbie Rush said of their entrance and choice of surname for the family, that they would be prepared for the public taunts they would receive for their surname. The character was originally called Carl Windass but was changed last minute to Gary Windass after a series of name changes to all the members of the family since their inception, but before appearing on screen.

Upon their on-screen arrival, it panned out almost as planned seeing him arrive as the son of Eddie and Anna Windass. Gary and his uncle Len went after David Platt and Joe McIntyre after David menaced his parents into handing over the money they owed for a new kitchen. Even though he has been brought up by his parents Gary looks up to his uncle who has had a heavy impact on his personality and his antics on the wrong side of the law.

The character of Gary is quite one-sided at first with him being presented as a typical bad boy. Actor Mikey North who portrays the character told the Scarborough Evening News that he is a hard nut type of guy but has plenty more side to come out stating: "Gary has a lot of sides to him. He is a bit of a hard nut, but also a charmer with the ladies.". Also he calls his character a lovable rogue. His traits and personality are based on what his onscreen uncle tells him to act like and in an interview with media website Digital Spy he talks about this saying: "He gets it all from his uncle Len, who in a way is his idol. Gary copies his uncle and wants to be like him, even though he realises that it's not the best thing to do." In the same interview he also speaks about the fact that Gary is in love with himself and thinks he can get any girl he wants with his own one-liners and the fact he loves to know that he is succeeding in winding people up with his antics. Popular Corrie coverage website Corrieblog described the character as cunning in the 'thick way' as he knows he would have to face consequences for fighting after he continually wound fellow character David Platt up.

After six months of the character being on screen, North commented more about his character saying: "The first time you step onto the Street you have to stamp your mark as to what kind of character you are. At first, Gary was shouty and happy to be aggressive, but the more you see it, his nicer side is coming out. In the run-up to the court case, you see him showing affection towards his family. He fears the worst. He thinks he's going to go down. He's worried about his mum too."