InStyle interview

COSTUME DRAMA

It was somewhere between the Thirties gown and the Topshop tea dress when we realised ANNA FRIEL was a fashion force to be reckoned with. She invited us round to chat film, family and her gotta-have-it wardrobe Photographs Micaela Rossato. Words Danielle Hine. Styling Lucy Bond

White Silk/cotton-mix top, £375, Stella McCartney (020 7518 3100) Black Lamé leggings, £35, American Apparel (020 7734 4477) Black Patent-lambskin and elastic open-toe shoeboots, £495, Dior (020 7172 0172)

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Silk/cotton-mix top, £375, Stella McCartney (020 7518 3100). Lamé leggings, £35, American Apparel (020 7734 4477). Patent-lambskin and elastic shoeboots, £495, Dior (020 7172 0172)

additional photograph by splash

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ou could never accuse Anna Friel of being predictable. Over the years, we’ve watched her morph seamlessly from soap star to darling of the West End and Broadway; lads’ mag pin-up to bona fide actress and girl-next-door to polished fashion icon. So when I arrive at her house, it’s not surprising to discover it fits none of my expectations. Instead of the fashionable actor’s loft in a converted biscuit factory with the requisite glass, steel and modern art, it’s a very traditional, cosy family home in Windsor. “Make yourself at home,” she says in her rich Rochdale accent, ushering me into her sitting room. “Do you want a cuppa?” Three years in Hollywood and one Golden Globe nomination later, it’s a relief that Anna still seems to be a down-to-earth northern lass. It’s a quality that also helped her to nab the part of Holly Golightly in the recent West End production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Director Sean Mathias was blown away, describing Anna as having “lots of style and sex, but also a big heart”. While the style today is cool but low-key (a Diesel tuxedo cardigan and jeans tucked into Uggs), the big heart is apparent around her little girl. When an angelic face peers around the living room door, Anna smiles proudly. “This is my daughter,” she says, swooping down for a hug. Four-and-a-halfyear-old Gracie shows off her Princess Jasmine costume before going to join her father, actor David Thewlis, who shyly nods hello. “She’s really into fancy dress. I’ve got her all these skinny jeans and Uggs, but for her, it’s all about Snow White, Cinderella or Jasmine,” Anna laughs. Just like Ms Friel herself, her home is welcoming and far from intimidating – all tasteful antique-chic with honeysuckle walls, wooden floors, William Morris Liberty-print curtains and ornate antique lamps. “I collect antiques. Even the lights in this room range from the 1800s to early 1900s,” she tells me. “Actually, I’m a bit obsessed about lighting.” With that, she jumps up and looks at herself in the mirror. “But even in this light, I look tired at the moment. Everything is a bit too...” She squishes her face into wrinkles.

Up close, the 33-year-old is blessed with youthful prettiness and elfin features. But she does have faint shadows under her eyes and the slight pallor of someone who’s a bit knackered. No surprise, given that she’s just finished a gruelling six-month run in Breakfast at Tiffany’s – 141 shows, to be precise. “And I didn’t miss a single night, even when I could barely talk.” She admits to feeling bereft now the show is over, “but at least I’ll see the cast and the director

With her partner David Thewlis

David’s my best friend. I can ask him about anything again. I loved them all”. (Unfortunately, her West End stint was tainted by rumours about her co-star – but more on that later.) Playing Holly Golightly to an enthralled audience every night was one thing, but Anna’s stage-door wardrobe created a fashion frenzy to rival Cheryl versus Dannii. Every night, she left the theatre in ensembles worthy of an old-school Hollywood goddess. Some cynics insinuated it was partly for publicity. But who cares? Any woman who can look that good 141 nights in a row deserves a fashion OBE. “My social calendar was incredibly busy each night and I like to make an effort to look good,” she shrugs, insisting that it wasn’t a case of painstaking planning each

night. In fact, each look took only ten minutes to throw together, with the help of her dresser/assistant Anya. “I already had my make-up done, so it was simply a matter of going through the clothes in my dressing room with Anya and saying, ‘Let’s put that with that’,” she explains. And as a result of her nightly catwalk show, she was inundated with outfits from designers. “I’ve now got 15 boxes of clothes from my dressing room to bring home! Topshop sent me boxes and boxes of stuff and there’s a lot of vintage pieces and stuff from designers like Antonio Berardi. Anya is upstairs in the attic now trying to clear some space for me. I’ll take you up in a sec.” A fashion player with wardrobes of free designer clothes and her own dresser? Anna’s certainly come a long way from her days as “lesbian kiss Beth” in Brookside. A professional actress since the age of 13, it was her two-year stint on the show that hurled her into the limelight in 1993. But instead of falling into that black soap-star hole afterwards, she did the unthinkable – becoming a well-respected movie actress. There were Brit films like Land Girls and Rogue Trader and a stint on Broadway in risqué play Closer, for which she won huge acclaim. Madonna desperately tried to get tickets and Jack Nicholson famously claimed, “Until I spend the night with Miss Friel, I won’t be able to concentrate”. Then Hollywood called. In 2006, she moved lock, stock and suitcases to LA to star in the sweetly quirky cult US TV show Pushing Daisies (now sadly cancelled). “It was a ground-breaking show and taught me so much – I got nominated for a Golden Globe. It was great for my career,” she says. In 2009, she was critically lauded for her performance in Jimmy McGovern’s gritty urban BBC1 series The Street and this year, she can be seen in the drama London Boulevard alongside Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley. And last year, she got the call every actor dreams of, when Woody Allen offered her a role in his film You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger, starring Naomi Watts and Antonio Banderas. Despite the wardrobe, Woody Allen films and a whirlwind life split between the UK and LA, Anna’s background couldn’t be more normal. Mum Julie is a deputy head at a special-needs school and her dad Des   ins t yle / april 2010 

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My relationship is not conventional. We have separate properties

Silk dress, £1,431, Antonio Berardi at Harrods (020 7730 1234)

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Stretch linen jacket, £730, Preen at Harrods (020 7730 1234). Cotton jersey and leather dress, £390, Theory (020 7221 1626)

InStyle interview

I’ve sketched out my own clothing line

Silk dress, £1,295, Roksanda Ilincic at Harvey Nichols (020 7235 5000)

is a teacher turned web designer who runs Anna’s website and looks after all her finances (“That makes me sound really childish, but I started earning money at a young age and Dad knows where to invest it”). Her parents have been married for 40 years and are still “madly in love”. I suggest that their example is perhaps why she has such a strong relationship with David, her partner of nearly ten years. (They got together at a dinner thrown by Brit production company Natural Nylon and went home with each other that night. He moved in three days later.) “It’s not conventional,” she says of their relationship. “He’s 13 years older than me. We have our own separate properties and we’re not married…” But that’s a modern relationship isn’t it? “Maybe it is... He’s my best friend. We have great conversations. I can ask him about anything and he’ll always have the answer. He’s smart and talented, two things that I’m attracted to.” Would she like to get married? “You’ll have to ask David,” she says. “He’s never asked me. It’s never come up.” Why don’t you ask him? “I’m too old-fashioned for that. No way does a woman ask a man. I know some people do, but I couldn’t.” How did she cope with press speculation about the nature of her relationship with Tiffany’s co-star Joseph Cross? “He’s a person I’m very close to. I worked with him every day for six months; he’s so dear to me. He’s my wonderful friend and co-star. He gave me a kiss and was like, ‘Hello, darling’, and they made a story about it,” she explains, frustrated. “I’m very tactile. They always manipulate things. They once took a picture of me with my brother and ran a story about ‘Anna Friel’s mystery man’.” It’s not the first time there’s been interest in her love life. There was her engagement to the notorious tabloid lothario Darren Day, plus a stream of high-profile admirers. Was she a hit with the boys from an early age? “I was a late bloomer,” she insists. “I only had two boyfriends. I lost my virginity at 16 and stayed with that guy for a year and a half. I was with Darren for two and a half years, until I was 20. I was single until I was 24 and met David. When I was single, that was when I dated.” Ah yes, the Robbie Williams era. “Yeah,” she says, changing   ins t yle / april 2010 

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What Anna wore next

I’ve now got 15 boxes of clothes from my dressing room to bring home

Canvas and cotton/silk-mix dress, £1,770, Bottega Veneta (020 7629 5598)

PHOTOGRAPHEd by Micaela Rossato at Patricia McMahon. Stylist assisted by Frankie Read. Hair by James Rowe at D+V. Make-up by Florrie White at D+V for Chanel Spring/ summer 2010 and Rouge Coco. Nails by Glenis Baptiste at MY-Management using Chanel Spring/ summer 2010. With thanks to Big Sky London. additional photographs by rex features, getty images, press association

How Ms Friel became our fashion pin-up

Cartier International Brit Week, LA, 2009 Land of the Lost Polo, Windsor, 2009 première, LA, 2009 ‘I wore this shift by Osman ‘The press said I’d “popped Yousefzada because it ‘Brooke Shields saved me from embarrassment that was Brit Week and I thought out” of this Antonio Berardi night. I’d sat in some water in it had something of the St dress, but you could only see the corner of one bosom! the car – she told me to not George’s flag about it. The turn around so the wet patch shoes are Jimmy Choo and The shoes are Louis Vuitton and the clutch is vintage.’ the clutch is Sergio Rossi.’ didn’t get photographed.’

the subject. “I wasn’t the girl at school who had all the boyfriends. All my friends were boys – but they didn’t fancy me. They saw me as a friend. And I got used to it.” Did that affect her self-esteem? “I think so…” she begins. “It’s really personal to go into that. That’s something I’d talk to a psychiatrist about!” She seems to be getting better roles as she gets older, so she presumably isn’t worried about ageing. “I’m not going to say I wouldn’t have anything done, because I’d be a liar. I’m sure I’ll be one of those people who has bits of tweaking. I haven’t done Botox, because I’m scared that I won’t be able to move my face. But I do have something called Polaris. It’s like a laser machine that brings collagen to the surface and reconditions the skin. You can see an immediate difference. It’s the best thing around.”

Leaving the Theatre Breakfast at Tiffany’s Royal Haymarket, press night, London, 2009 London, 2009 ‘This is a Thirties evening ‘This vintage dress is from the Forties. It’s a size four and gown; the jewellery is by Donald Edge. I wanted him I’m an eight – I had to wear a to emulate the beading on corset. The stole is a feather the shoulders of the gown.’ cape and the shoes are Gina.’

She steers the conversation back to her We head back downstairs, with Anna comfort zone – fashion. Her face lights up telling me that she finds a lot of her stuff when she talks about clothes. “I’ll take you at vintage conventions. “Just go on Google upstairs so you can meet Anya and see and you’ll find out where they are. There’s where I keep my stuff,” she grins. Entering one in Earl’s Court and one in Clerkenwell.” her attic-cum-dressing room, I feel like I tell her she should do her own clothing I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole and ended up line. “I’m too scared it would fail,” she says. in the world’s most amazing vintage store, “I did sketch out my own entire pregnancy where Anya’s sorting clothes into piles line when I was pregnant. I was so close to – “maybes, keepers and throwers”. signing a deal, but it fell through.” I brush past a stunning black crepe So, what’s next? “My agents are saying Forties halterneck dress hanging off a I should get back to LA immediately. But wardrobe door (a keeper) alongside some at the moment, I’ve just got to come up Seventies Biba maxidresses (ditto) and for air. I need a few weeks of not wearing spy another cupboard full of designer make-up and spending time in my kitchen and vintage shoes, plus one full of chopping vegetables. I’d also like a make-up, filed and labelled under turquoise sea, sand, sun and STAR STYLE! types and colours. There’s so See Anna’s top lots of sleep. Then I can come red-carpet much to covet, I almost don’t back strong and fresh and moments at know where to look. “It’s my make all my decisions.” instyle.co.uk Aladdin’s cave,” she laughs. Sounds like a plan.   ins t yle / april 2010 

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