Despite serving just a two-year sentence in the confines of Brookside Close, much of Anna Friel’s career seems to have been influenced by one moment in the Channel 4 soap, with her on-screen kiss with Nicola Stephenson making more headlines for Rochdale-born Friel than any of her later acclaimed performances.
Whether appearing as an impeccably-accented nurse in the Goal! trilogy of football movies or courting controversy with parts in Stephen Poliakoff’s The Tribe and Perfect Strangers, that pre-watershed lesbian kiss would, for many, have been the overriding memory of the actress. Until now…
As unlikely as it seems for a former Brookside star to have earned a Golden Globe nomination - ok, Jennifer Ellison was alright in The Phantom of the Opera - Friel has done just that in the last year, thanks to Pushing Daisies. A wonderfully loveable show from US network ABC, it’s imminently due to make its debut on UK screens, after ITV took the unusually bold step of ordering a whole season on the strength of one pilot.
Friel stars as Charlotte ‘Chuck’ Charles in the comedy drama, created by Dead Like Me’s Bryan Fuller and starring Lee Pace as pie maker Ned, endowed with the ‘gift’ of being able to bring dead things back to life with the slightest touch.
Ned embarks on a lucrative side career with private dick Emerson Cody (Chi McBride), the pair splitting the reward offered by families of murder victims after reviving the deceased and confirming the cause of their death before Ned touches them a second time to send them back to heaven or hell.
But when Chuck - Ned’s childhood sweetheart - surfaces as another crime victim, Ned can’t bring himself to sentence her to the grave and chooses to leave her alive - meaning that despite their growing adult attraction, they can never touch.
Both Pace and Friel earned best actor nominations at the Golden Globes only for the joy at their fledgling show being recognised to be quashed when the Hollywood writers’ strike caused the cancellation of the ceremony, meaning both missed out on their chance to stride down the red carpet.
“It was a bit of a damp squib,” Friel told inthenews.co.uk.
“I felt like my favourite fairytale was ruined, like Cinderella didn’t get to go to the ball.
“I tried on all the dresses and was like, ‘don’t do this to me, it’s not fair!’”
But any fears that the British actress might have acquired diva-like pretensions since her move to the US were quickly allayed when she stressed: “The thing is, there’s much more important things to think about.
“People are losing their jobs and their houses [so] how in the world can we get angry that we don’t get to go to a party and have a little tantrum?”
“I think if you’re going to ever lose, that was the year to lose,” she added, presumably thankful that the show had received a full second-season order from ABC and could begin shooting imminently after the WGA strike concluded.
At a press conference showcasing the show’s pilot episode to the British media, Friel - mother to two-year-old Gracie - admitted the pressures of juggling family life with shooting a glossy American series can be a struggle, as has been confirmed by fellow Brit and House star Hugh Laurie.
“It’s hard to juggle both, it really is, but Gracie comes to see me every day on set,” she said, adding that actor partner David Thewlis is a “wonderful father” and can be relied upon to help out with babysitting duties in between shooting.
And with the set of Pushing Daisies filled with Fuller’s fantastical creations, be it technicolour meadows or beloved pets brought back to life, Friel said her toddler can’t wait to visit the production.
“She comes in and there’s monkeys on the set or fields of windmills and there’s now a big sweet shop. She just arrives and says, ‘Mummy’s got the best job in the world’.”
One look at the imaginative, inspiring and continually uplifting world of Pushing Daisies and you have to admit - she might just be right.
Soon enough, British viewers will have one hell of a treat in store, be it from the “40s-style” chemistry between Friel and Pace, McBride’s impeccable comic timings, the dulcet tones of the diminutive Kristen Chenoweth and the lustre effect, helping the cast to look “continually beautiful”, even when they’ve been filming until the early hours.
