I was well up for the wrestling... it’s fun to be physical and luckily nobody got injured
STRICTLY JILL ON THE ‘NEW FULL MONTY’
You might have forgiven Jill Halfpenny for refusing the chance of slipping on a leotard and leggings to wrestle with a gang of sweaty men – in front of a camera.
But she jumped at the chance to learn the half-nelson for a bit of grunt and groan in the ring – even adding a glittery peacock tail to the slinky costume in her latest movie.
“I like being physical, you don’t get to work with your body very much when you do a lot of film and TV work, it’s fun to me to be physical,” she says.
Brit flick Walk Like A Panther – also starring Liverpudlian actor Stephen Graham – is a sort of Full Monty but with way more spandex.
Former Byker Grove star Jill plays Lara Anderson, the single female in a gang of past-their-sell-by-date wrestlers.
Faced with closure of their local pub, the lads try to save it by resurrecting their glorious wrestling heyday – reminiscent of ITV’s World of Sport on Saturday afternoons with legends like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks. And Lara’s the “glamour” attraction. Jill, 42, laughs like a drain when I mention the peacock tail, which appears in one scene when she’s trying on her crazy wrestling clobber.
“The brilliant thing about my character is she thinks she looks amazing, no one else has to think that, you don’t put a costume on and think ‘do I look amazing or not?’. It’s about her thinking ‘I am it’,” she giggles.
That attitude definitely helped Lara in the ring and Jill loved it too.
They clearly make them tough in Byker Grove country – the kids’ TV drama in which she famously launched her career aged 13, alongside Ant and Dec and Donna Air.
Even training with real-life wrestlers didn’t faze her. “I loved all that, absolutely loved it, they could have given me more and more and more, I was well up for all the wrestling,” she says.
A couple of people might have had a few twinges here and there,” she adds. “But thankfully none of us got injured.”
And the snug costumes didn’t make Jill nervous either. Two years past 40 is not too old for a peacock tail.
“It’s just fun to wear things like that, it’s play, it’s literally like having a fancy dress box,” she explains.
“You get a perspective on life as you get older, and you know what is important and what isn’t and if someone doesn’t like what I’m wearing or how look, that’s fine, that’s their opinion.”
She adds: “Ageing is going to happen, it’s happening, I have got signs of ageing all over my body, all over my face, my hair, my hands, it is what it is.
“I’m not going to run around screaming I’ve got a grey hair.”
Jill, who moved to London after Byker Grove at 17, has never been short of work. In recent years she’s starred in Babylon, In The Club and the gritty reallife drama Three Girls. She’s also had roles in Coronation Street and EastEnders, as well as musicals Chicago and Legally Blonde. And she won the Strictly Come Dancing glitterball in 2004.
In the past, she didn’t say no to the odd sexy shoot, either. She insists they never made her feel awkward. She says: “They approached me, I thought it sounded fun, I did it, that’s it really.”
I sense Jill’s never been one to cause a fuss. But the good thing about ageing, she adds, is learning to be more laid back about her career.
And becoming a mum to nine-year-old son Harvey – she divorced from his dad actor Craig Conway in 2010 – might have something to do with it.
“The older you get, I think probably the less important work becomes and
the more fun you have with it,” she says. “And there is a freedom in understanding that it’s just a job, a bit of fun.” She’s found she hasn’t worked any less since reaching her 40s and now gets more varied roles. “I feel like I get to do more interesting things now,” she adds. A career in the States has never beckoned. “I never thought it was the ultimate thing,” she says, adding it might prove tricky with her son. “There are times when it’s like ‘oh no’, I have to put him in after-school club because I have an audition, but my mam helps out loads.” She’s certainly not ashamed of her Gateshead roots. Having grown up in a “normal, working class” family – she lost her dad aged four, but mum re-married – acting was out of the ordinary on her estate, let alone landing the Byker part.
“It was the best four years ever, I’d skip to work I’d be so excited,” she recalls.
She’s still on friendly terms with some of her co-stars and lunches with Donna Air, who recently lost the Dancing On Ice skate-off, regularly. “I really like her,” she says.
And it looks like the next lunch will be on Jill, judging by the toll she inflicted on the movie set.
“There were some injuries to a few wallets,” Jill smiles. The blokes didn’t stand a chance in shove ha’penny between takes.
Jill chuckles: “We would play games between scenes, like where you push a coin along a table and it has to land in a certain area. So we all put a quid in. I won about 50 quid.”
Walk Like A Panther in cinemas now.
It was the best four years ever, I’d skip to work with excitement JILL HALFPENNY ON WORKING ON BYKER GROVE