Talk about a busy time. I had appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, where I’d finished second to Tom Chambers, before we all set off on the Strictly tour of 30 performances around the country. It was all so much fun – but terribly exhausting. I really needed a holiday and so did my fiance Alex Bourne, who had been through the whole Strictly experience with me.
A Caribbean cruise seemed like a perfect antidote to all the stress. Our trip started with a flight to Miami, where we spent the first night. I had stayed here for a time back in the days of S Club so it was great to return.
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Handbag.com pays a visit to the very chic Rachel Stevens at the suitably ladylike Haymarket Hotel. Gone is the excitable popstrel of old and in her place is an impeccably turned out, beautifully groomed lady. We got down to the fun business of discussing the terribly important things in life such as what’s in her red carpet clutch, the benefits of having a hairdresser for a mum and how that may well have led to her being the new hair ambassador for GLISS hair care products…
So your mum’s a hairdresser – no wonder yours always looks so effortlessly fab, does she still cut it or have you sacked her now?
Well, no she doesn’t cut it anymore but she always used to say to me when I was little don’t cut your hair off, so she knew what would work for me and I have to say she was right. Now however I do have my hair coloured at the wonderful Percy & Reed.
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The former S Club singer reveals the latest terrors that Abby and the Primeval team have the deal with…
What’s happening in this Saturday’s episode of Primeval?
“We’re faced with a herd of stampeding seven-ton rhino-type beasts! Then Danny turns up with the mysterious woman he saw in the future, Eve, and she says she has the power to save everyone from the herd. No-one knows who she is, and Abby keeps a close eye on her. There’s a big shock to come!”
Sounds like another really big action sequence!
“Yes, this series has been exhausting but brilliant fun. And Abby’s had a Mini Cooper S this time to drive very fast. She drove a Mini in the last series but she’s been upgraded to a Cooper S in this one. I was able to open her up on the track, although I burnt out the clutch so probably took it a bit too far…”
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Hannah Spearritt shot to global fame as part of seven piece pop group S Club 7 enjoying a string of hits all over the world.
But when the band split Hannah turned to acting landing one of the core role as Abby in ITV’s sci-fi series Primeval, the third series begins in the new year. I caught up with her to discuss the new series and what lies ahead for her character as well as talking to her about the Pringles Select competition.
Series 3 of Primeval will be back in the new year what can we expect for Abby in the new season?
Well we have got new characters, new creatures again it gets more brave plus there are more episodes this time as well. Abby’s journey, in terms of something that is different from the previous series, a blast from the past, and I won’t say who, but she has somebody who comes back from her past that shocks people especially Connor shaking up their relationship which is exciting. (more…)
Posted: November 29th, 2008
Strictly between you and me, there’s something about Rachel Stevens that has never quite added up. Normally, if I let slip to my colleagues that I am about to interview a woman who has consistently featured as one of the sexiest women on the planet in every poll that measures such matters, there’s usually a sense of awe and envy.
But with Stevens the opposite is the case. Bizarrely, many people would happily avoid her company. After meeting her, one journalist described the experience as ‘the longest hour of my life – it was like attempting to interview a wardrobe’.
And it wasn’t just the press. DJ Chris Moyles once commented, ‘I know she’s meant to be really fit but she’s really boring.’ Scissor Sisters vocalist Ana Matronic went even further, remarking, ‘Rachel Stevens has all the personality of a slice of toast.’
Part of the problem has always been that she often struggled to live up to her billing as S Club 7’s resident sexpot. She sold 16 million records with the band between 1999 and 2003, before going on to record two solo albums. After which she more or less disappeared from view. Now, after three years in the showbiz wilderness, she’s back as a contestant in Strictly Come Dancing.
Despite her reputation, she couldn’t be more exuberant at today’s shoot, taking to the role of an atomic pin-up starlet like she was born to it. In fact, over a morning together, Stevens turns out to be the very opposite of what I’d been led to expect as she talks openly and passionately about her lonely childhood, her parents’ divorce, her estrangement from her father, her stint in therapy and her love-hate relationship with fame. (more…)
Posted: November 25th, 2008
The actor, 28, on getting jiggy with Sienna Miller, and his girlfriend’s killer backside…
We’re used to seeing Andrew Lee Potts fighting prehistoric creatures, and generally saving the world. And with filming of the third series of Primeval currently underway, Andrew told us the best thing about playing the eccentric Connor Temple is… Hannah Spearritt.
Andrew’s been dating the ex-S Clubber and his Primeval co-star for two years.
“If someone had said to me 10 years ago, ‘The love of your life is going to be an ex-pop star turned actress,’ I wouldn’t have believed it at all,” the Bradford actor confesses. “I didn’t think I attracted those type of people,” he adds. “You know, people who are really famous.”
Although they’ve been in a serious relationship for two years, that wasn’t the start of the pair’s romance.
“We dated years ago, for about two weeks,” Andrew tells us. “I was 18. She was in S Club, and I was filming Band Of Brothers. We were in different worlds and we lost touch.”
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Look out boys, gorgeous Rachel Stevens says she would happily strip off for a sex scene.The former S Club singer has hung her microphone up for a while and wants to pursue an acting career.
And she told the Razz she’d be comfortable with taking her clothes off in the line of duty.
Rachel said: “I’m with an acting management company. We’re looking at the script for a great romantic comedy play at the moment.
“Some of the scripts I’ve read have full-on sex scenes and stuff like that but that’s part of it. You’ve got to go for it.”
Rachel said she had enrolled to study an acting technique which would help her overcome any fears about getting naked on stage or screen.
She said: “It’s basically about being fully truthful in the moment and putting your attention on to the other person. It taught me that when you are in the moment and take on a role, that it doesn’t matter about these things.
“You’re not thinking about yourself, so don’t have that awkwardness about being naked in front of all the crew.”
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When S Club 7 split up in 2003, many thought that would be the end of the tween sensations.
But one member of the pop band has come back bigger and better than before, although this time she has reinvented herself as an actress.
When Hannah Spearritt, the impishly pretty one from S Club, signed up to star as zoologist Abby Maitland in ITV1′s Saturday sci-fi smash hit Primeval, she didn’t realise it would be such a success, or that she’d bag herself a new bloke in the process. The boyfriend in question is her co-star, Andrew-Lee Potts, who plays her will-they-won’t-they? love interest, Connor, in the show.
So, how do the lovebirds cope, living and working together?
“Working together 24-7 is always going to be a rollercoaster I suppose, but we’re good because any problems we have, we have a chat about and work through,” says Hannah.
“It was a journey,” adds Andrew. “The last thing you want when you’re doing stuff wrong at work is for your missus to be watching it, so there was all that mixed in.
“Also, as an actor I’m used to looking after myself, even though it sounds selfish,” he continues. “But with Connor and Abby, because it was me and Hannah, it meant so much more and we so wanted to get it right. There were a lot of emotions on the set for us. If we do it again we’re looking forward to it because we went through that whole journey and we learned quite a lot about each other.”
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Posted: February 4th, 2008
