Hearts Were Broken That Night...

Michelle Keegan shares the joys of filming the new series of Our Girl… and looks back on the effects of Elvis’ shock death

 

Since leaving Coronation Street four years ago, Michelle Keegan has become sterling proof that there’s life after soaps.

Stepping off the cobbles has seen Michelle land juicy, dramatic roles, most notably as army medic Georgie Lane in BBC1’s Our Girl.

The action-packed military series, which returned to our screens last week, has thrown more physical challenges at Michelle than she ever faced as Corrie’s Tina McIntyre. In Our Girl, Michelle has endured a real army boot camp and months of filming in 40°C heat in the South African desert and Malaysian jungle, which are doubling for Nigeria, Belize and Bangladesh.

Michelle admits it’s been tough. “The intense heat is quite unbearable at times,” says the 30-year-old actress. “But your body does become used to it. As soon as we were in the heat, we started sweating from 10am until the evening – our T-shirts looked like we’d been in a swimming pool. But we just got on with it and it became the norm.

“We had no make-up, just tinted moisturiser. In South Africa it wasn’t too bad, but in Malaysia we were sweating beads of foundation!”