My Friel-good factor

Anna Friel bounds into the room and flops theatrically onto a chair. "I'm so tired," she announces with a huge grin.

"We've just got back from Los Angeles and I've got the worst jet lag." She went to Hollywood with her long-term partner and fellow actor David Thewlis to meet studio bosses and discuss potential films. "We're trying to stay up till 11pm to get over the time difference, but by 10pm we've collapsed. Then at 2am we're in the kitchen making a full breakfast."

Despite the jet lag, Friel is on great form. She is so warm and sweet that it would be easy to be cynical and assume she was just turning on the charm, but it seems, instead, that she's simply a nice person. Her passion for her fellow actors would be nothing more than shameless name-dropping from anyone else - mentioning, as she does, Billy Connolly, Michael Sheen and Gary Oldman to name a few - but with Friel, it is more a matter of unbridled enthusiasm. She chats so fast she sometimes forgets to take breath.

She looks amazing too. An afternoon sunbathing in LA has brought out her freckles, and her skin positively glows - thanks, perhaps, to the fact that she hasn't smoked since last New Year, save the occasional lapse. Her glow could also have something to do with the fact that she has just taken 10 months off - the first long break she's had since she was 16 and made her name as the lesbian patricide Beth Jordache in Brookside. It's been a period of serious reflection for the 27-year-old, who spent the time finding a new agent and agonising over when would be a good time to have children.

She smiles. "David would have children straight away, but he knows that if I were to get pregnant now it would be very silly. I still have to give acting my best shot. I am aware that there's always someone prettier and more talented who is willing to go that extra mile. I want to succeed. As long as at the end of it, if it doesn't work out, I know I'm going to be okay."

Friel has suffered from endometriosis (which can result in problems conceiving). In 2000 she had a ruptured ovarian cyst and underwent two blood transfusions. "I saw one doctor who told me it would be very hard if I left trying for a baby beyond the age of 30. I got so scared that I went to see another doctor who reassured me I had more time."

She fidgets on the chair, tilting it back and leaning against the wall. "I've got three years to go till I reach

30. I just don't know about babies at the minute. I come from a very tight, close family and I'd want that for my children, too. When I had that time off, when work wasn't influencing me, I started thinking: 'Oh, maybe I should have a child.' But how would it fit in? I wouldn't want nannies to do my job. I'd want to take two years off work."

At first, Friel found it difficult not working, not only because of the burning issue of starting a family, but also because she just wasn't used to it. Her parents, both teachers, had brought her and her brother up with a strict work ethic (she considered going into law before the lure of television) and sitting around was against her nature. "For the first few months I was so impatient and frustrated," she explains. "I kept thinking: 'Oh my God! It's all over! I'm never going to work again.' Especially when your boyfriend is an actor, too, and he's working every day, either on Harry Potter or his own film. I felt as though I was shopping at Tesco every day." She stops for a moment and looks pensive. "It wasn't easy, but maybe I really needed to have time off. I needed to reassess my life."

She confesses to feeling rather lonely before meeting Thewlis at a dinner party three years ago. Although she surrounded herself with celebrities, the feeling didn't go away. At one point, she had a full-time assistant who travelled everywhere with her. "It was just like having a paid friend, which sounds very sad but I need consistency in my life."

FRIEL'S often drunken social forays with Kate Moss and Sadie Frost are near-legendary - for a time they were the barely dressed stars of the London party circuit - but she maintains that too much has been made of this period in her life. "When I first moved to London, I was in a relationship with Darren Day for two-and-a-half years. I forgave him [for running off with Coronation Street's Tracy Shaw] and we stayed in touch for a while, but there didn't seem much point in the end. I went out with Robbie [Williams], of course, and I had a great time, but he wasn't ready for a long relationship." She pauses for breath. "So I had three years on my own. If you stay in, you're having to contemplate everything and suffering anxiety attacks, so it's hardly surprising if you go out with your friends sometimes."

She sighs. "From the ages of 16 to 18, I was a workaholic. Then I was a 22-year-old going out for the first time. But I didn't party that much. I was guilty by association. Anyway, I haven't seen Kate or Sadie for four years. Four years! I never made a point not to; it's just that paths change. I rarely go into the West End, as David's flat is in Clerkenwell and my house is in Windsor."

Although Thewlis has evidently had a calming effect on her life and she is no longer lonely, the changing point in Friel's life pre-dates meeting him (she gets angry when people assume he "saved her" because he's 13 years older than her). In 1999, she played a lapdancer in Patrick Marber's Closer, on Broadway. Madonna chased round town for tickets, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman popped into the dressing-room, Al Pacino rang her in her New York apartment and Jack Nicholson publicly said he couldn't rest till he had slept with her. The play gave her confidence and, away from the London scene, made her realise people actually liked her for who she was.

Friel sips mineral water and wonders, at about 7pm, if it's time for lunch yet. She is still on LAtime and her body clock is confused. "I had such a great time there. All the studio bosses were advising me to move to Hollywood - it worked for Rachel Weisz and Minnie Driver. David and I are thinking about spending the first three months of next year there. We'll see."

For now, Friel is clearly feeling good about life. Blissfully happy with Thewlis, she has finally fulfilled her long-term ambition to make a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster, with her new film, Timeline.

As well as starring with Billy Connolly, better still, she got to work alongside Thewlis. "David and I were so happy at the prospect of working together," says Friel, almost shouting with excitement. "But in the end we were filming at different times. It was hard work; for two solid weeks I was in a caravan from 6pm till 6am, and I didn't get used once. I didn't dare complain in case they thought I was a diva."

While Friel was working with Billy Connolly, she recounts how he told her: "You've grown into a great young woman. You're not hanging round with those fools any more."

Harsh words, maybe, but Friel is now her own person and remains resolute about her acting. "I guess I stopped going out because I don't want people to have a misconception of me. It's not good to have a reputation as a party girl if you want to be taken seriously as an actress. And who am I to argue with Billy Connolly's words of wisdom? I think I really have grown up."

Anna Friel is presenting VH1's 100 Greatest Pop Culture Icons, on VH1 on Saturday 15 November from 8pm. Timeline is released on 5 December.