'I've Never Cared About Getting Older, I Just Wanted To Get Better'

As actress Anna Friel returns to our screens in Marcella, she tells us what to expect and why her daughter Gracie may follow in her footsteps

- Gerry Gilbert

It's now 25 years since a 16-year-old Anna Friel rocketed to stardom following her Brookside character Beth Jordache’s kiss with nanny Margaret Clemence – the first lesbian embrace to be broadcast on British television before the 9 pm watershed.

‘It was a kiss like that,’ says Anna, quickly pecking the back of her hand to demonstrate. ‘That’s literally all it was and I was 16 years old – and I’m now 41. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone.’

We’re sitting in the London offices of ITV, where Anna has hot-footed it from the airport following a holiday in St Lucia with her daughter Gracie, 12.

‘I promise her that as soon as I’ve finished filming something we can go on little adventures together,’ says Anna. ‘We’ve done Uganda together, and Vietnam. We try to choose a destination we’ve never been to before. It’s such a precious time.’

Anna needed a break because in the past six months she has been busy filming The Girlfriend Experience in the US, plus the second series of ITV’s Marcella, in which she returns as an emotionally unstable detective.