How Anna Friel went from Lancashire lass to LA woman
by JANE GORDON
Last updated at 15:40 15 March 2008
Anna Friel's 決意 to 持つ／拘留する on to her British roots can be
観察するd in almost everything about her, from her accent (Lancashire with just a hint of LA) to her wardrobe - a
mix of "high street and designer".
簡潔に 支援する in London
as 押し進めるing Daisies - the 攻撃する，衝突する U.S. TV series that has turned her into a
major 星／主役にする - is about to be 審査するd on ITV1, she is wearing a scarlet
Louis Vuitton coat over Tsubi ジーンズs that she has matched with a Tu vest and
ballet pumps (and you can't get much more "high street" than Tu at Sainsbury's).
"I think it's really important to 持つ／拘留する on to who you really are, and I am not
going to let this new success change me.
"I am keeping my accent and my own
look," says the 31-year-old former Brookside actress with an almost scarily
決定するd 表現 on her gamine 直面する.
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British actress Anna Friel, 31, has finally 攻撃する，衝突する the big time as a woman 支援する from the dead in the 攻撃する，衝突する U.S. TV series, 押し進めるing Daisies
Indeed, Anna is so 関心d
about 持つ／拘留するing on to her "遺産" in the wake of her new life in Los Angeles
that she was recently 報告（する）／憶測d to have said that she and her partner, the
44-year-old actor David Thewlis, 手配中の，お尋ね者 to 雇う a nanny from Rochdale
(her home town) to 確実にする that their daughter Gracie, who will be three in
July, would grow up with a Northern brogue to match their own.
"井戸／弁護士席, David and I are British, and we thought that it would be a bit strange
to have a daughter speaking with an American accent.
"So when our last nanny
left we asked a 隣人 of David's mum and dad in Blackpool to look after
her.
"She is really gentle and lovely and Northern and was meant to come to LA
for a week, but she stayed for three and a half months - Gracie adored her.
"Her accent is even stronger than 地雷 and Gracie is always 説 things like,
'We don't do that, do we not?' and, 'beeayootiful'," she says.
But if supremely ambitious Anna has fought to 持つ／拘留する on to her accent (off
審査する at least; she "turns off" her American twang at the end of the working
day) and her style (she has made it やめる （疑いを）晴らす what she will - and definitely
will not - wear for our photo shoot) there are 指示，表示する物s that, in a number of
other ways, her 最近の elevation to the A-名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） has had an 衝撃.
For a start
there is the 側近 that surrounds her - publicists, lawyers, スパイ／執行官s and
stylists.
Because 権利 now (as she points out a number of times), Anna is the English actress of choice in LA, 丸天井ing over a dozen bigger 指名するs to 安全な・保証する her 役割 in 押し進めるing Daisies and, に引き続いて the show's success, 伸び（る）ing a dream part と一緒に Will Ferrell in the much 心配するd movie
The Land of the Lost.
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Anna with 押し進めるing Daisies co-星／主役にする 物陰／風下 Pace. Both were 指名するd for Golden Globes after just nine episodes had been 審査するd
Her stardom, she 譲歩するs, has not been 達成するd without sacrifices
(when we 会合，会う she has been staying in a London hotel for four nights while
David has been looking after Gracie at their British base in Windsor), but there
is "no jealousy" and "no 競争" with David (best known as Professor Lupin
in the Harry Potter films), even if her career does seem to have overtaken his.
"The upside of the 13-year age gap between us is that he has been my age,
when it was all very hectic, and he had the freedom to go where his career
took him, and as a result he would never stand in my way," she says.
"He is
very supportive, and a wonderful daddy."
It isn't surprising that Anna is relishing her newfound status (at one point
during our shoot her assistant shouts that "Anna wants a clean 始める，決める", as though
she were doing a nude movie scene rather than a photo 開会／開廷／会期 in West London), because international fame has been in her sights for nearly half her
life.
The part she plays in 押し進めるing Daisies - a woman brought 支援する from
the dead - has resurrected a career that had never やめる lived up to
the 約束 of her 早期に success as Beth Jordache in Brookside
when she was 16.
その後の 役割s in films such as Rogue 仲買人 and Goal! failed to 勝利，勝つ her the plaudits and awards she
longed for (she is anxious for me to について言及する that she was
指名するd for a Golden Globe for 押し進めるing Daisies this year).
Until the director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in 黒人／ボイコット, Get Shorty)
chose her as the 女性（の） lead in the quirky comedy-演劇 series
("he knew straight away I was the one"), her main （人命などを）奪う，主張するs to fame were that
first lesbian kiss in Brookside in 1993 and her 関係 with the actor
Darren Day, the について言及する of which 誘発する an involuntary shudder from Anna.
But in 押し進めるing Daisies, a 探偵，刑事 show with a supernatural 新たな展開, she has
finally 設立する her form.
Anna first 設立する fame in the UK at the age of 16 playing Beth Jordache in Brookside
The 'offbeat' 陰謀（を企てる） features Ned (played by 物陰／風下 Pace, who
was in The Good Shepherd with Robert De Niro), a pie-shop owner who has
the 力／強力にする to bring people (and 工場／植物s) 支援する from the dead, which he uses to
solve 罪，犯罪s.
Anna is his 罪，犯罪-fighting sidekick Chuck, the love of his life whom
he has brought 支援する from the dead knowing that if he ever touches her she
will die again.
In the 役割 - Anna based the character on her daughter Gracie -
she has at last 達成するd the 承認 that she feels is her 予定 and which,
she says, eluded her for so long because of "bad 管理／経営" and bad luck.
"I think I was advised very 不正に.
"I didn't realise there was more to building a
career than talent; I thought that if you were good your talent would 向こうずね through.
"I got the work but it wasn't the 権利 work until 押し進めるing Daisies and, even then, I
tried to talk myself out of it.
"I knew that every girl in LA 手配中の，お尋ね者 the part of Chuck
but I told the 生産者s that I was terrified, that I didn't know if I could be funny
and that I certainly didn't know if I could commit to a six-year 契約.
"And I thought, 井戸／弁護士席, that will be, 'Thank you for coming in, Anna,' but いつかs it 支払う／賃金s to be honest," she smiles (she looks a １０年間 younger than her years).
It wouldn't have been possible for Anna to 調印する up to a possible six-year run
of the series without moving David and Gracie to LA.
They manage their family
life, she 自白するs, with some difficulty (when they are 狙撃 the series she
作品 17-hour days), but it is made easier by the fact that David's 第２位
career as a writer (his novel The Late 圧力をかけて脅す（悩ます） Kipling was published last year,
and he is 令状ing a second) 許すs him to be at home.
When Anna won the
役割 she bought a house ("I ran g David and said, 'I bought a house,' and he
was like, '罰金'") in the hills の近くに to the Hollywood 調印する, and their new home
is a mecca for their fellow British 事実上の／代理 friends (Ben Chaplin has been staying
with them for the past few months, and Anna counts Sophia Miles and Lena
Headey - who are both starring in U.S. TV shows - as の近くに girlfriends).
Anna says that it would be "fantastic to have success without the fame"; in
the past she often 扱う／治療するd 圧力（をかける） interviews, she says, like "therapy", thinking that she had to say "絶対 every 選び出す／独身 thing".
As a result she became "tabloid fodder", so these days she is prickly about her 私的な life. Her first big love 事件／事情／状勢 at 18, with Darren Day (who left her for Tracy Shaw after three years), 誘発するd a 広大な／多数の／重要な 取引，協定 of 圧力（をかける） attention, as did her その後の 関与 with Robbie Williams and her friendship with Kate Moss.
The mere について言及する of
her old friends produces a 疲れた／うんざりした roll of her 注目する，もくろむs.
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Once a model friend: Anna wth Kate Moss the day after her Broadway debut in 'Closer' (1999)
"I 港／避難所't seen Kate for eight years, but I did bump into Robbie in LA and it was just, 'Hello, how are you doing?'
"And Darren 扱う／治療するd me very 井戸／弁護士席 when we were together - apart from
に向かって the end.
"But honestly, life is too short to 持つ／拘留する grudges," she smiles.
Anna and David have never formalised their 共同; curiously, their
daughter was christened Grace Ellen Mary Friel.
"We talked about her 指名する a lot because David's real surname is Wheeler and we didn't want to have three surnames (in the family), so we settled for Friel.
"David is very の近くに to my
parents and he likes the 指名する," she says just a little defensively.
But does she
think they will marry?
(David had a short-lived first marriage to director Sara
Sugarman that ended in 1993.)
"It's not an 問題／発行する. We have been together
seven and a half years and we don't really think about it.
"We have never
talked about it - ever," she says, a bit 突然の (perhaps it is an 問題／発行する).
So David has never 提案するd to her?
"No," she says 堅固に, changing the 支配する when I 知らせる her that it is a leap year and perhaps she should 提案する
to him.
Nor does she have 計画（する）s for any more children because her life is so
frantically busy that any time she has she wants to give to Gracie ("I don't
need sibling 競争 on 最高の，を越す of everything else").
Indeed, the real downside of success is that Anna is so time-餓死するd she
isn't able to indulge her other passions in life, such as 存在 with her parents
(she is very の近くに to her mother, a teacher, and her father, a website designer,
who still live 近づく Rochdale, and 行方不明になるs them terribly) and shopping.
"I think I am probably like a lot of mothers of young children in that I don't
have the time I used to have to spend on myself.
"I have always been big on high-street fashion and I don't think you have to spend lots of money to look good, so it's brilliant to be able to go supermarket shopping and 着せる／賦与するs shopping at the same time 特に when - like Tu at Sainsbury's - some
of their 範囲s are Fair 貿易（する） and don't cost a fortune," she says.
Anna says that, at eight 石／投石する, she is half a 石／投石する heavier than she used to
be, （人命などを）奪う，主張するing that the 伸び（る） (which is imperceptible) is 負かす／撃墜する to Gracie and an
演習 政権 that is 限られた／立憲的な to wheeling a buggy up and 負かす／撃墜する the
Hollywood Hills.
Has Gracie - whom she often dresses in Tu at Sainsbury's -
相続するd, along with that lovely Northern burr, her mother's sense of style?
"No! She is 全く into pink, much to my 狼狽.
"I will try to 説得する her
into something gorgeous, muted and subtle and she will say, 'No Mummy,
pink'.
"It's all pink princesses with Gracie. She has a 抱擁する dressing-up box
and it will be Weetabix at breakfast in a big princess wedding dress.
"She is
really funny. She will ask, 'Am I a princess Mummy? Am I beeayootiful?'
And I will say, 'Oh, my goodness, look at you - you are beeayootiful'."
? 押し進めるing Daisies will begin on ITV1 早期に next month.
