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Simone Lahbib

Interviews

Bad Girl to Queen of Crime

Daily Record, April 1. 2003

[The article mainly deals with Lahbib's new six-part gangster series, The Family. - As always, the remarks in brackets, as well as the emphases, are from Ivanova.]

Family finishes filming next month and ITV1 are hoping to screen it in the autumn.

For Simone, it should put her back in prime-time after being away from our screens for years.

But it wasn't because the scripts dried up. Simone revealed it was her decision, saying: "At first I just wanted to put some space between me and my character in Bad Girls."

"I also wanted to get the right thing and not just take the first script. It has been financially very difficult, but it's worked out for me in the end.

"People don't recognise me so much as Helen now unless I'm in Soho."

Straight-talking with a lesbian icon

by Syrie Johnson, London Life, ? 2002?

I've tried to resist, really I have, but my first question to Bad Girls star, Simone Lahbib, was inevitable. "So, how does it feel being a lesbian icon?" Lahbib puts her head in her hands. "Oh no. It's overwhelming and very flattering, but it's great. It's slightly unreal, what with being straight. But it seems to be breaking down some of the ignorance, stereotyping and prejudice that gay women and men have to contend with every day, and that can only be a good thing."

The show's cult following means Lahbib herself is now as big a sex symbol as Tamzin Outhwaite. The difference, obviously, is that most of the fans checking into Lahbib's 86 websites are women. Last year, members of the official fan club hired a London pub to watch the final episode, and when Lahbib showed up to answer questions she was mobbed.

The actress - who's in her "early thirties" - receives thousands of letters, as well as gifts, from both men and women. "One woman wrote telling me that she had lived in a little village all her life and was ostracized when she came out. But since Bad Girls, people's reactions to her have changed for the better. It's amazing to know you have this sort of effect on someone."

Lahbib claims she has received only one negative letter, from a woman. "She was saying, 'How could a nice girl like you allow yourself to be used by the gay liberal front?' It quoted Sodom and Gomorrah. It went straight in the bin," she says firmly. Actually, Lahbib was brought up a strict Catholic, and still holds Catholic beliefs - though not on homosexuality.

(...) And she also refused to go on the children's Saturday morning show Ant and Dec. "I'd love to do it, but not representing Bad Girls," she explains, "It's such an adult show. I just think it's wrong." She is also slightly concerned at the age of some of her fans. After the first series, she did a "meet-and-greet" in Leicester. "There were loads of teenage girls there and they had all seen the programme," she recalls, "That made me a little uncomfortable, not simply because of the lesbianism, but also the drugs and the bullying." [Hmmm...]

(...) And how did her Catholic family react to her love scene? "Some like it, some don't watch. Last time I saw my granny I told her there was a big kissing scene coming, and she said, 'Och, it's only acting, isn't it. As long as you don't like it'."

Lahbib was initially sceptical of the lesbian storyline, believing the idea of a prison governor falling in love with an inmate was too far-fetched. It was only when she went to Holloway prison to research her role that she changed her mind. "I got in contact with the ex-governor of Holloway prison. The stories she told me were just incredible. The suicides, riots, drugs and relationships all rang true." Lahbib is more interested in the women's issues raised by the series than the "Babes behind Bars" sensationalism.

60 Second Interview

Metro, ? 2002?

What's it like being in Prisoner cell Block H - sorry, Bad Girls - then?

The great thing about a series such as ours is it is about women by women. It was conceived by Maureen chadwick, Ann McManus and Eileen Gallagher and they're right behind it. That's why it's such a success.

The great thing about a series such as ours is it is about women by women. It was conceived by Maureen chadwick, Ann McManus and Eileen Gallagher and they're right behind it. That's why it's such a success.

Was it hard to rehearse for the lesbian kiss scene?

We didn't bother - you don't need to rehearse a kiss. Whether it be male or female, you tend to rehearse the scene around it and then wait for the actual take to do the kiss itself. It helped that Mandana and I have worked together before and are friends. We only get the scripts a week in advance so we sit round and discuss the characters over a number of cups of coffee.

(...) Can all Scots do a Sean Connery impression?

Shertainly Mish Moneypenny. :)

As a kid were you a girly girl or a tomboy?

A bit of both. I enjoyed scrambling up trees with my lip gloss on

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