Friel acts out fantasy figure

It may be only her first British stage role, but playing every man's fantasy cannot be too much of a challenge for Anna Friel.

She has just started rehearsing the part of Wedekind's Lulu and is clearly relishing the role. "Lulu is like a comet that burns across Europe, through Berlin, Paris and London, destroying all those with whom she comes into contact," says Anna, plainly relishing the prospect even though it's beginning to keep her awake at nights.

"The lines are in your dreams and you don't want to switch off. It will take over my whole life. It has to. It's such a challenge."

She is rehearsing under the guidance of the Almeida's joint artistic director Jonathan Kent and will make her debut as Lulu - a young woman possessed by the fatal combination of sexuality and innocence - in March, some 10 years after Joanne Whalley-Kilmer played the part. Unlike Joanne, she won't be appearing in the Almeida Theatre itself which by then will be undergoing its £4.5 million Lottery-backed refit, but in the new performance space in a disused bus depot at King's Cross.

"I've seen the set and it is magnificent. It will look really rich, not like a cold bus depot at all," she says.

Lulu is a new adaptation by Nicholas Wright. Director Kent says: "It's a great subversive play about sex and desire, about power and greed and the hypocrisy of society in its attitude toward sex. Lulu is part victim and part predator."

The play charts her path from the high society of Paris and Berlin to the backstreets of London - hence the appropriateness of the King's Cross venue - where, reduced to prostitution, she finally falls victim to Jack the Ripper. Anna adds: "She's a fantasy figure representing all womankind. And she knows how to use her body which is how she survives.

"She knows how to give every single man whatever he wants. She can fulfil his sexual fantasy. Whether it's for a fisherman's boy or the sexy tango dancer, she will do it."

To this end, Anna has been learning new singing and dancing skills and will even simulate sex on stage.

"But it's not nakedness and its not titillating to watch," she stresses.

Anna, 24, was chosen by Kent partly for her combination of "knowingness and innocence" on the strength of her television appearances.