The Scotsman

The Second Sexiest Woman On TV has a vice and she came to it late, a bit like Charlie Watts, who passed on the bacchanalian pastimes of his fellow Rolling Stones for two decades only to succumb to heroin in his mid-forties. 

In a Portakabin at the BBC's Elstree Studios, her head half out the window, Tamzin Outhwaite chuckles at the comparison - she has a dirty laugh. "Can you believe I waited until I was 29 before I started smoking? The only saving grace, I suppose, is that I bum my ciggies off mates." So how serious is her addiction - ten, 20, 50 a day? "No, just the one." 

She takes a last, lingering and, it should be said, deeply sensual sook of her fag, checks her VW Beetle - well, you can't be too careful round this neck of the woods - and returns to her seat. She's tall, willowy and of course blonde. She removes her long leather coat, the kind almost always purchased with ill-gotten gains, to reveal an outfit of autumn browns and beiges that includes knee-length kinky boots. Repeatedly over the next hour and a half, she'll tug at them, and her mini-skirt, as if her clothes weren't her own, which they aren't. 

Outhwaite, 31, an actress for whom fame has come late and for whom the ultra-fame of a soap is something to be taken in your elegant stride, is better known to the great viewing nation as Mel Owen of EastEnders, and lipgloss-pout legend. Before that, she was Mel Beale, previously Mel Healy, and for all we know, probably a few other Mels along the way. She gets around, does this one, but not for much longer. The one-fag-a-day habit may be permanent, but the four-episodes-a-week routine as a "soap stunna" and "telly turn-on" will end shortly. Fings, as they say, are gonna be different round 'ere. Meanwhile out there, on Planet Real, Outhwaite wants to be Britain's answer to Jennifer Lopez ... 

"It's been three years, which seems like long enough, and let's face it, Mel's just about slept with every man in Walford now - there's no place left for her to go," she explains, after shooting a scene where her alter ego has been buying fruit from Marks & Sparks. "Mel has been through a helluva lot. She arrived as a girl-next-door and ended up getting kidnapped by Dan Sullivan as revenge on Phil Mitchell. It's been an emotional rollercoaster, she's hit so many highs, too many perhaps. To maintain that kind of momentum is difficult. Maybe with each big drama in her life having to be topped by the next one, she'd have turned into a bit of a joke. I didn't want that to happen. I want her to go out at the top of her game, to leave everyone gasping for more." She pauses. "But probably the reaction will be: 'Thank God the cow's gone.'" 

Elstree has a strange air of reality about it. Fiction is made here, but the gunmetal-grey hangars and huts could be any other factory plant. Killing time before the interview, I walk past a big chimney, and lots of men in overalls mooching around, drinking tea from paper cups, while others kick a ball against a wall. 

The restaurant resembles your standard works canteen, and none of the scene-hands scoffing platefuls of chips give the woman in the spray-on leopard-print top and shiny short black skirt a second glance. This is the one they call Cat, dressed for a Breezer-fuelled night "up West" or, alternatively, a spot of housework. Outside, a forklift trundles by. It's pulling carts loaded with scenery, each containing four flimsy walls lashed together, and one is labelled "Bepe's living-room". Any day now, "Mel's bedroom" will be broken up and chucked into the incinerator. Now if these walls could talk ... 

Men love Mel, obviously - she bears a passing resemblance to Susan George, who bizarrely did a turn herself in Albert Square recently - but so do women. Outhwaite says her character thinks of herself as a feminist. So, given that she already possesses the same filthy laugh, which other bit of Mel would she like to take with her when she walks into the Walford sunset, with the low spark of a high-heeled girl? "Oh, probably her ability to forget about her last man and move on to the next one so effortlessly ... " 

This might be a joke. Outhwaite is charming, up for talking about most things and funny, and when an extra with a squatted-in face straight out of the books of Central Casting barges unannounced into her caravan, she quips: "Meet my boyfriend." But she won't discuss her private life, other than to admit she's always been in long relationships. 

"I've never been a girl for messing around," she says, distancing herself from Mel, she of the two marriages and countless affairs, who seems to pick her men from the Albert Square copshop's usual suspect files, not least Steve Owen, alias Martin Kemp. "And I'm still mates with all my exes, they're very dear to me, which probably explains why I've never had a kiss-and-tell story written about me." 

These exes include Marty Benson, a Scots-born TV producer. She was recently quoted as saying she's "just good friends" with Ali G sidekick Steve Ellington ... and then there's Jamie Theakston, subject of some tabloid tittle-tattle about a fling. Mind you, there's always Jamie Theakston; he gets around almost as much as Mel does in the quick-assembly bedrooms of Walford. 

OK, let's try to ask the question another way - does she always need to be in a relationship? 

"In the few I've had, the support, companionship and intimacy has been pretty good. But, you know, maybe I'm more like Mel than I think. She's a chameleon and I'm like that about men. My view on them changes from week to week. This week, my career is fulfilling in more ways than one and right now I really don't think I need anybody. But I love being in love. And I want kids one day ... " 

Tamzin Outhwaite is an Essex Girl, born in Ilford, the daughter of Colin, a taxi driver, and Anna, her half-Italian mother, and grew up as part of a happy, loving family with her two younger brothers, Kes, now a physiotherapist, and Jake, who runs a valeting business. 

Her first memory of anything was falling off the top bunkbed, which left her with a tiny, tick-shaped scar above her left eye. "My mum used to say I got it because I was a good girl." Another chuckle, straight from the gutters of Albert Square. 

"I was very sporty - trampolining, gymnastics, netball - so I was a tomboy when I was younger." What else? "Oh, loud, show-offy, and a bit of a madam." For part of her teens, she went to a convent school. "That must be where I got my discipline from - you had to wear the right shoes indoors and never be late for anything." Now, she certainly seems pretty sussed, in control, even more so than Mel. 

"I'm glad this mad sort of fame came to me late, when I was 28, rather than 18, when it might have turned my head." When has it been at its maddest? "Millennium Eve, when EastEnders was broadcast on a big screen in Trafalgar Square. I was marrying Ian Beale, and when it came to the 'I do' moment the whole crowd fell completely silent. That was mad. Thankfully, I was hundreds of miles away in Madagascar." 

She gets lots of fan mail, of course, mostly from men, but nothing weird, save the odd request to dress in leather for a signed snap. How does she feel about being thought of as extremely desirable (and second only to Nigella Lawson in that Sexiest Woman poll)? "Well, obviously it's fantastic, but if you're on the telly and can scrub up reasonably well, you're going to get some attention." 

At some point in her youth, she can't remember when or why, but it was after buying her first record, The Nolans' I'm In The Mood For Dancing, and before her disastrous experiments with a tangerine perm and soccer casual-style fashion, the sporty girl fell in love with acting. "I loved the teamwork of school productions. Actors are very heart-on-sleeve people, when you're all thrown together for a show, you get on. I loved the intimacy of acting, and still do." 

For a while, Cats was the apogee of her ambitions. She didn't get there, but still managed to notch up just about every other musical in the West End, dancing in clubs with an all-girl troupe between jobs. "I never got depressed when the break didn't come, I would have been happy being a jobbing actress forever. I have friends who are actors who're much more talented than me, and they're still waiting. The only thing I can say is that, for me, the journey was the most amazing thing. I love my life now, but it's much more pressurised." 

When she picks her parts now, of course, she's the cat who gets the cream. She denies being the beneficiary of a £2 million golden handshake tying her to the BBC, but the first drama of the deal, Red Cap, is a star vehicle in which she plays an army investigator. A series has been commissioned and she's not even been seen in the role of Sgt Jo McDonagh. 

"There are some great actors in this, like Douglas Hodge and James Thornton, and at first I was flattered that they wanted to be associated with me because I get a lot of press attention and they might have thought me a bit of a media whore. But I didn't doubt my own ability, no." 

The EastEnders producers naturally wanted to stay, but her mind was made up. She doesn't know how Mel will be written out, but hopes she might be allowed to swank off somewhere exotic, say the Caribbean, so if she returned cast and crew would all get a holiday. 

Ambitions? "I'd love to do a Jennifer Lopez," she says, as she's summoned back to the set. "How does she do the whole acting-singing deal? Why isn't there a British version of her? I could do that." More interestingly, she's also a fan of mock-doc comedy such as the Alan Partridge shows and The Office, but accepts she'll never get the chance to be this naturalistic because of the imprint magnificent Mel has left on viewers. 

"I know that whatever I do I'm not going to be watched by as many people ever again. My recurring fantasy is that Nicole Kidman breaks a leg and I get to do Moulin Rouge II. The nightmare? That I end up on Challenge TV hosting a late-night karaoke contest." Somehow, you can't see that happening ... 

Tamzin Outhwaite Goes Wild With Dolphins, Thursday, 6 December, 9pm, BBC1 

Red Cap will be shown on BBC1 later this month.



Observer
Farewell Albert Square 
Leaving EastEnders will make Tamzin Outhwaite one of the BBC's highest paid stars. But why, asks Euan Ferguson, does she have to join the Army?

Sunday November 25, 2001
The Observer

The big question about EastEnders, I say to Tamzin Outhwaite, is this. Why, on EastEnders, does no one do one of the two things that real East Enders spend much of their lives doing: swearing, and watching EastEnders? 

She has the grace to laugh: a slightly dirty laugh, and unforced, a welcomely innocent sound in our false surroundings. We are eating - trying to eat - some BBC food in a small, boiling room at the Elstree studios in Borehamwood. Outside the window, hastily disassembled scenery flats line the paths, each with its own scribbled title - Beppe's Flat, Sperm Clinic - and the main sound-stage is guarded as closely as Boston Airport. Inside, Outhwaite is trying not to grumble about the food. 'This isn't salad, it's just four bits of lettuce. I'm not being snobby, I just don't want to eat another sandwich, you never get anything but bloody sandwiches, do you think we might be able to find a tomato...' 

She stops, worried that she's sounding like a fussy thesp, and remembers the question, and arches an eyebrow, as if it's the first time it has ever struck her. 'You're right. Nobody watches EastEnders. Nobody seems to watch telly, or talk about it. And the swearing... well, you come close. But you can do as much with a "You f..." or "You b..."' - she twists her face up, glares in disgust and shakes her head slowly from side to side - 'and you don't have to say it. Better that way, probably. But yeah, it's funny, innit?' 

There's a refreshing lack of cynicism about Outhwaite, although she's learning. She won't talk about her love life, for instance - 'No matter what you say, who you say it to, it ends up being distorted, and as soon as I start living my life as a celebrity rather than an actress it'll all fall apart' - so I learn little about the rumours of canoodlings with Jamie Theakston, which suits me just fine. It's part of the reason, she admits later, she wouldn't want to live in Walford: 'I wouldn't like the feeling that everybody knows my business all the time.' 

Care for her privacy is one of the biggest things she has learnt, during a whirlwind recent past that must be every chorus girl's dream. Plucked from relative obscurity in the West End, doing stints as, for instance, the flower-seller in Oliver!, Outhwaite burst onto our screens as Melanie Healy in EastEnders three years ago. The camera loved her, the audiences loved her, and recently she was voted the second sexiest woman on TV (after Nigella). And along the way she got to marry Ian and Steve, sleep with half of the rest of the cast - this is as Mel, not Tamzin - get outrageously drunk, get kidnapped, burn down a club, yell 'you b...' at Barbara Windsor and watch the ratings continue to rise. Mel was possibly the most instant hit the show has had on its hands since its inception, and Outhwaite isbecoming one of the BBC's highest-paid stars, signing a two-year golden-handcuffs deal understood to be close to £2m. 

Not with EastEnders, however - for, as quickly as she arrived, she's orf. First to be seen swimming with dolphins in Florida in a documentary next week and then, long-term, to follow Nick Berry and Michelle Collins and Ross Kemp and Letitia Dean and another dozen into the risky world of mainstream drama. 

Risky because, while the first two have had notable successes, other results have been... mixed. Risky because Lynda La Plante will doubtless be having a go soon, as she did recently, at the whole process of soap stars going mainstream and the supposed threat this poses to 'real drama'- a charge Tamzin rejects: 'It's daft to try to categorise so easily - soap star or drama star - and, besides, I think EastEnders is drama anyway.' 

I can sense some critical pencils being sharpened already. Red Cap, which airs over Christmas and the New Year and which BBC1 has high hopes of making into series next year, stars Outhwaite as the 'bold and uncompromising Sergeant Jo McDonagh', the newest plainclothes recruit to the elite British Army unit of the Royal Military Police. She is, apparently, a woman in a man's world. Her character, Outhwaite says, with eager innocence, is feisty but likable. 'She's the underdog that wins through, but still doesn't take any crap from anybody.' 

And Red Cap may well be wonderful, a new Heartbeat for our times, but it seems a shame that everyone who goes from EastEnders into 'mainstream' drama seems to have to play a feisty underdog in the police, or army, or bomb disposal veterinarian unit. 

Why was she doing it? 

'I just think that Mel had run her course for now. Apart from anything else' - and here comes another filthy laugh - 'she'd slept with everyone. 

'And I'd always tried to keep every avenue open, even before EastEnders. I was doing musicals, but I would also be in commercials, then might do a TV job later same day; then I went up to Scarborough to do some work with Alan Ayckbourn, which was a tremendous education in itself.' It was shortly after this when it all started to go horribly right: she finished one Ayckbourn run at the end of June three years ago, auditioned for EastEnders on 5 July, and found she had the job on the 8th. 'And EastEnders has a great policy of looking after you by letting you go off and do things if you need to: it keeps you interested and you come back refreshed.' 

Did she feel any jealousy from the longer-serving cast members, who, while quite possibly loved by the nation, are pretty determinedly type cast now? 'No, no. And if I had a family - I'd like to one day get married and the rest, but not yet - but if I did I would completely understand staying on EastEnders. What a great way to keep a reliable income, I'd do it myself. 

'And it has been lovely. I was a fan before - Bianca was my favourite - so it was exciting joining it not just as an actress but as me. The hardest thing, at the beginning, was not to call people by their character. And then you get to know them, over a period - it's a pretty warm place - and there are now friends, such as Lucy Benjamin [who plays Lisa], that I'll be staying in touch with for a long time. 

'It has been hard work - very hard, sometimes. It takes a certain kind of actor to hold 16 scripts in your head at one time, and to turn on anger, or tears, 10 times a day to order; the talent on EastEnders should never ever be underestimated. Sometimes you wouldn't get home till 11 in the evening. Apart from anything else, it means you miss EastEnders. You start relying on people you meet in the street to tell you what's being going on in the other plotlines. 

'My highlights? I loved the Ian Beale wedding, then getting together with Steve. Then the sleeping with Phil scene, at Christmas. Then the kidnapping. Which was good, but difficult. The best thing was, throughout, there was some fun. I never came in thinking I really don't want to be here.' 

Along the way she has also learnt how to cope with increasing celebrity. She's young, she's pretty and everyone watches her: it wasn't long before she began to get stopped in the street. 'The good ones are those that just smile, knowingly, and you can smile back, knowing that they know that you know. Then there's the ones that want to speak, or touch you, but that's OK. The kids are the best, natural and raw and innocent, they just shout, "Oh my God, Mum, it's Mel." And they fill you in on what Steve's been up to. 

'There are also the papers, of course. Press attention can be fine in its way, if it helps you publicise whatever you're doing, but a lack of press attention actually gives you more time to concentrate on work. As soon as you start believing your own press, whether it's negative or positive, if it's not being backed up by the work the whole thing's empty. Work's the thing. 

'I'm quite conscious that it's a risk, this move. You can always choose wrongly, you could make continuous bum decisions. But sometimes it just needs one good decision and it all works. Also, the quality of scripts I'm seeing these days is really high; the stories are diverse, but there are a lot you know would work, real page-turners - like Red Cap, which I knew I wanted to do as soon as I started reading it.' 

Ideally, she says, she'd like to do a filmed musical. 'Something with Baz Luhrmann. God I'd love that - Moulin Rouge, Strictly Ballroom... I just adore them. Something with music but done with irony, something with different levels going on, dark and light at the same time.' 

In the meantime, there are a few months' filming left at Elstree before Mel's - doubtless dramatic - departure from Walford, and Outhwaite's thoughtful farewells to those she has lived and worked with. 

Do they have leaving parties? 

'I don't know, not really... there are too many ins and outs these days. There was a big party when Ross [Kemp] left - but he'd been there for 11 years. Me? Hey, they'll have forgotten me six weeks after I'm gone.' 


Guardian Unlimited (c) Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001