The Sadie show

1/2

Marianne Macdonald. Photographs|Derrick Santini. Styled Gianluca Longo

5 April 2012

It is 1pm at the Wilmington Arms in Clerkenwell, and Sadie Frost is daubing tomato ketchup on to a vegetable pie and mash at a bare back table. She is in the middle of frantic rehearsals for

Touched... For The Very First Time,

Messy black hair tucked behind her ears, she is elfin and thespy in black leggings, black puffa jacket, sparkly legwarmers and tiny pink and white striped socks.

Two and a half years ago, when I last met her, her pretty green eyes were flat and guarded and she radiated a hint of sadness along with a streak of toughness: she was nerve-wracking to interview because she so clearly distrusted the press following her high-profile divorce from Jude Law.

But today her gaze is clear and she is straightforward and friendly, clearly strong in herself. 'I think I am,' she agrees in her flat North London voice. 'I'm realistic and positive and not full of self-pity - that's the hard thing when you go through a divorce. "Why's this happened, why, why, why?" Now it's like, "I'm glad it's happened; look what I've got in my home, look at my kids, look what I'm doing right now, in this play."

"She and her posse withstood the most thrilling scandals of the era"

Sadie, 43, and her best friend, Kate Moss, were at the centre of London's most glittering and hedonistic clique all through the Nineties. Rich, young and beautiful, she and her posse of close girlfriends - Kate, Sadie's partner in her fashion business FrostFrench, Jemima French, Davinia Taylor - withstood some of the most thrilling scandals of the era.

The 'Cocaine Kate' allegations, the Pete Doherty madness, the Pearl Lowe wife-swapping saga and Sadie's climactic split from Jude when he turned 30 and she was 37.

It divided the Primrose Hill set, pitting Sadie and her much younger musician boyfriend Jackson Scott against Jude and his much younger actress girlfriend, Sienna Miller. On his side the Britpack actors; on hers, Kate, an alleged suicide attempt, new baby and nervous breakdown.

Sadie wears dress, £300, Alice McCall at KJs Laundry (020 7486 7855). Shoes, £415, Luella (020 7518 1830)

Still, she doesn't hide her relief that her life is in a different place from her annus horribilis in 2003. That year divorce left her a single mother of four children, her mentally unstable artist father died of liver cancer, and Nicole Kidman instructed her lawyers to issue proceedings at any suggestion she was responsible for the break-up of Jude Law's marriage, while he lasered off his Sexie Sadie tattoo.

'It was so boring,' she groans. 'I just didn't want that attention more than anything. You want to move on as a person and people are constantly bringing stuff up. It's like, "For God's sake! I'm trying my best here!" ' She grins. 'People die, people divorce, things happen. But I've got the ability to be independent, to move forward, if I can be allowed to, and there was a frustration. I had to put up a façade with people, which I don't have to do now. I don't care, in a horrible way. I'm just, like, happy.'

"I think younger guys... they're a bit more brazen, a bit more full of life. Not so intimidated' "

I say it just seemed so intense - she said once there was 'just too much love and too much passion... it can go from incredibly loving to this explosive thing.' 'The press made lots of stuff up,' she replies. 'It wasn't for us.' But her eyes go slightly blank when I ask if she could imagine them getting back together. 'No.' She shakes her head definitely. Because they've both changed? 'Your relationship goes to a different level. You've moved. Hm!' she adds with amusement, into the slightly awkward ensuing silence.

Though Jude proposed to Sienna, they never married. Last year he was linked to Kimberly Stewart and Lily Cole; Sadie is also on her own after being linked to several twenty-something toyboys: Jackson Scott, whom she lived with after Jude; Andy Jones, an actor; Alex Zane, a TV presenter; Tom Wright, the son of DJ Steve Wright, and, most recently, the underground musician Kristian Marr; so what's with the younger guys? 'Listen, you say that, but I split up with Jude six years ago and I've only had one proper relationship in that time,' she exclaims good-naturedly, meaning Jackson Scott. 'Most of the time I've done what normal women do, which is go on dates! I just happen to be pictured on them.'

Her own childhood couldn't have been more different. It began in an unheated Hampstead commune after her 16-year-old mother, Mary Nolan, got pregnant. Sadie's father, David Vaughan, was a heroin addict and psychotic, according to an artist who knew him at the time; Sadie said once that their relationship was terrifying. Before he died, he painted portraits of her: 'Sadie in a Mental Prison', 'Sadie Being Crucified'.

"'I always wanted a really solid family unit. But even though I embraced pregnancy and having children, it's very difficult for an actress to keep a career heightened once you've got kids.'"

I think I lived pretty much in a fantasy world right from an early age. That's probably why I went into acting, because I enjoyed being there.' She pauses. 'I wouldn't say I had a painful childhood, I would say it was extraordinary, and again, I feel there are all kind of things that are characterbuilding in it.' She grins, taking a forkful of peas and pie. 'I'm actually not frightened of saying I'm boring now. It was a friend's birthday last night and a friend of mine was playing and I walked in and the music was too loud and I walked home. I was like, "Too loud." Before I might have stayed for an hour.'

After stage school at Italia Conti - Naomi Campbell was in the year below - she did some TV, got together with Gary Kemp, had their son Finlay, and flew to LA to land what is probably still her biggest film role, in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula in 1992. She got together with Jude after meeting him on the set of Shopping, and went on to make a string of British movies. 'And then I got pregnant with Raff, so my career always fitted in around me having children. I always wanted a really solid family unit. But even though I embraced pregnancy and having children, it's very difficult for an actress to keep a career heightened once you've got kids. But I'm glad I made that decision.'

More kids are not on her agenda - she's enjoying having more time to herself. With her new freedom she made a short film last year about motherhood, learned the trapeze and resuscitated FrostFrench after it went into administration - she and Jemima have pared down the business to one shop in Islington. Meanwhile, she is throwing herself into Touched.

Sadie helps herself to a mini Creme Egg that came with the bill and we head back into the arctic cold to the rehearsal room. On the way the subject comes up of our shoot the previous day. 'My nipple kept popping out,' she recalls with amusement. 'He didn't like that, the fashion director! "Put it away!" I was like, "Who cares!" ' And with this brief bohemian cameo she grins and vanishes into the red Victorian building.

Touched... For The Very First Time opens at Trafalgar Studio 2, 14 Whitehall, SW1, on 4 February (0870 060 6632)

MORE ABOUT

Divorce And Separation

Jackets

Jude Law

Socks

The Sadie show

Read More