FHM
Interview
January 2002
Sleeping Beauty
That lesbian kiss.. Romances with Robbie Williams and Darren Day... Regular tabloid appearances... it was about time FHM caught up with the surprisingly famous Anna Friel. Luckily, she was in accommodating mood...
It's easy to knock the people of Liverpool - especially when you're far away, and the riot-loving savages' wild, deadly punches are well out of reach. But for all it flaws - crime, Tarby, its proximity to the rest of the country - Liverpool somehow manages to unite its strangely proud citizens in a way that other cities simply fail to match. Nowhere is this touching solidarity more evident than on Channel 4's almost daily visit to Brookside Close; a curiously watchable microcosm populated entirely by the downbeat, the depressed and the beleaguered - yet all still possessed of the same Dunkirk spirit that kept grandad whistling while Mr Hitler blew off his legs. Brookie is brilliant: in spite of the murder, the arson and the ready access to quality imported drugs, its cheeky-faced provincial populace can always conjure up a warm, friendly smile, and their skill at plucking jokes from the grimmest of situations - a multiple pile-up, say - is unsurpassable. Yet it's not its ensemble of cheery, difficult-to-understand layabouts that the rest of Britain has to thank Brookside for. No, it's Anna Friel, the staggeringly cute elfin-faced beauty who set the show alight almost a decade ago with her long-running stint as lesbotic dad-killer Beth Jordache.
Like a lovely old girlfriend whose memory lingers on through cold, lonely nights, Friel - now 25 - has a very special place in the hearts of Britain's male population: here's a woman who not only set a soap first with an on screen lezzer kiss, but who has also been kind enough to remove layers of undergarments in a number of subsequent roles. Not that Friel can't act - despite a body of film work that hasn't really set the world on fire (Mad Cows, anyone?), the pint-sized Rochdale beauty has to be one of Britain's grittiest, gutsiest lady thesps. Take the missus along to her new film, Me Without You, in which she pays the same character over a 15-year period, and you'll see.
Today, Anna is entertaining FHM in a London bar just around the corner from the home (a converted ballroom) she shares with boyfriend David Thewlis, the bedraggled northern actor who starred in Mike Leigh's Naked. Dave's alright by us, though: it's on his recommendation that Anna opted to pose for FHM. "He says it's the best", Anna states, correctly, winning her lover a surprise free subscription. Long gone are Anna's tabloid-friendly days of nobbing around trendy London clubs and staggering out of cabs with Kate Moss hanging from her arm. She's grown up. Her own gaff is in posh Windsor, the snooty Berkshire town which even The Queen is happy to call home as she flees the smog-riddled streets of London. The relationship with Darren Day.... the fling with Robbie Williams.... the much denied alleged one-nighter with Jamie Theakston - is all water under the bridge. And after an acclaimed stint on the New York stage in a play called Closer (Jack Nicholson and Al Pacino were both in the audience), Anna is back in Britain, with her eye once again on films. You missed a treat with Closer, though.... "I played a stripper but I didn't actually strip", says Anna. "But it was so revealing anyway. There was one scene with a settee and every night for six months I had to balance my bum on one corner and put one leg over there and one leg over there. My co-star's head - a bloke - was right in front of me. So his eye-level was right between my legs, and all I'm wearing is this tiny little G-string....."
Oh, the poor fellow......
Yeah - one night he said to me, "I fuckin' love that - it's my favourite bit every night". The funny thing about that play was that you can't really see the audience, but every now and then you'd see a face - and some of the faces kept turning up in the same seats. I was thinking about it, and suddenly thought, "They've got the best angle there!". So I got one of the crew to sit in those seats to see what you could see - you could see a bit deeper into the thigh and you got a bit of tit when I bent over. I couldn't believe it.
You must have made the odd cock-up over a six month run...
There's this stripper scene where the guy gives me money and I'm supposed to stuff it in my bra. This one night I wasn't wearing one so there was nowhere to put the money - I had to stuff it in my knickers.
In your new film, Me Without You, you end up at the skankiest party ever. What's the weirdest soiree you've stumbled across in real life?
It was about two years ago. I was in Bali on holiday - me and three girls in this massive house - you could fit 40 people in there, swimming pool and everything. One night we drove to a party but when we arrived it was the most mental do ever - everyone had pink or blue hair and weird clothes and there were all these strobe lights on. You'd open doors and cupboards and there'd be people inside, going, "Hi!". Most were Italian, we couldn't understand a word, so we left after about half an hour.
So you and the three ladies returned to your mansion, and....
Well it had this amazing sound system, so we put some music on. And then went skinny-dipping.
You hail from Rochdale, which is also home to Lisa Stansfield - famously allergic to her own saliva.
How can you be allergic to your own saliva? I'm allergic to really strong penicillin. I get a lot of acidic stomachs.
And terrible wind?
Yeah, terrible wind. I think I let that point escape within about two days of meeting David. He was like, "You can't do that! You've got to keep that private for a few weeks!". I've been out with people who are really bothered about stuff like that: they won't go to the toilet in front of you - they'll say, "I'm just nipping out to do the dry cleaning", and disappear for 10 minutes.
Does David do the gentlemanly thing and put the toilet seat down ?
Yes. But the one in the London flat is the most disgusting toilet: it's got no seat or lid - it's broke. So people come round to this gorgeous house, go "Oh, its lovely", and then when they go to the bathroom they have to sit on raw plumbing.
Eddie Irvine once told FHM he nearly died on a toilet: he was shagging a ladyfriend, the loo seat shattered and the two metal prongs almost shot up his arse....
Oh my God! Fucking hell ! I don't exactly know how ours cracked; we came back one night and it was broken, so I hope no-one was getting it on on the toilet.
What the rudest memory you have of your old bedroom?
My dad walking in while I was having sex. He was really calm - I remember he just stood there and said, "Do you want a cup of tea ?" He said afterwards, " Well, what did you expect? It was a great opportunity: you were more embarrassed than I was!"
And what about the poor bloke?
It was Darren Day!
Ha! Did you really go out with chimp-faced crooner Robbie Williams?
For about four months - and then he went to rehab. Then he turned up on my 21st birthday again and I saw him for about another month. We had a lovely time - he's a really cool guy. He's a total charmer, if he likes someone he's completely committed to them.
So how did the Stoke warbler pull you?
He said, "I've liked you for ages - will you come out?". He took me to the theatre. I wasn't used to anything like the kind of attention he was surrounded by: we went to Milan and he got mobbed - girls literally elbowing me in the face. David saw him in the street the other day and Robbie gave him a wave. He's one of the few people who I think really deserves to do well, and he has massive insecurities that I don't think he should have.
Robbie auctioned off his Tiger undies last year...
Really? I don't recall those.
...was he a tiger?
Ha-ha ! I can't remember - it was, like, three years ago.
Yank actor Kyle Maclachlan - your co-star in the new film - told FHM recently that he was always being out-drunk by the Brits on set...
Pah! I think any Englishman can drink Americans under the table: they get pissed on two glasses of wine.
What's your tipple?
I like wine, but I don't drink if I'm working - you can't work hungover and it can make you look puffy.
Having played a lesbian, do you get gay girls coming on to you?
It has happened. One of my best friends is gay and she's like, "You're fucking gorgeous you are - David, if you mess up I'm right in there." I'm supposed to have had a thing with so many girls - but I haven't. I'd say so if I had, I wouldn't be ashamed of it. I've snogged some girls.
For a laugh?
Just... I think girls can get away with it more, messing around with stuff like that. It was really weird - and that's why I don't do it any more. It feels so odd - you might as well be kissing your hand. It didn't turn me on: I like a nice pair of men's lips - women's are too soft.
In the film Magnolia, Tom Cruise teaches men to "respect the cock". Would a macho type have any luck with you ?
What, someone talking about their dick?
No, just generally macho.
Macho doesn't do it for me - I like a man who is masculine and confident rather than a man flexing his muscles going, "Go on, feel that".
Wasn't Darren Day a bit of a pretty boy?
He went to the gym a lot, and I didn't. Put it that way.
Tom Cruise, too - he saw you in Closer, didn't he?
He came backstage but he didn't see the play; he was with Spielberg and Nicole Kidman and they knew Natasha Richardson really well and they came to see her. So I walk into the room and it's like, "Hello!". Tom had this big cap on, and he was talking to me and I said, "I can't really see you to speak to," and he's like, "Well.... all those people in the street," and I went, "Well you're not in the street, mate, you're in the dressing room." So he took his cap off.
Nice one. Finally, what's the strangest place you've ever had make-up applied in pursuit of the perfect scene?
All over. In this thing called The Tribe for TV after leaving Brookie - it was the most gratuitous sex scene ever. I so wanted to do a film and I didn't really realise what I was letting myself in for, but you could almost see everything. Ha ha ! I remember having to have a quick trim of the old pubic hair the night before.....