Anna: My terror at new lesbian role... 23 years after THAT kiss

ANNA Friel became an overnight sensation when she puckered up for the first-ever lesbian kiss in a British television soap.

But almost 25 years later, the star has admitted she is ‘absolutely terrified’ about the nude lesbian sex scenes in her new TV drama.

The actress, now 40, says she is ‘upping’ her gym time to prepare for her starring role in The Girlfriend Experience, in which she plays a high-flying politician who embarks on an affair with a female escort.

In an exclusive interview in today’s Magazine, inside this paper, she says: ‘Nudity and sex are the key to the role. It’s terrifying. I’ve definitely upped my hours at the gym.’ Friel was 17 when, as Beth Jordache in the Channel 4 soap Brookside, she locked lips with nanny Margaret Clemence, played by Nicola Stephenson.

The ground-breaking kiss in 1994 sparked a media storm and Friel became a star overnight. But the actress says the controversy made her think twice about playing a woman in a same-sex relationship again.

She says: ‘For a very long time I was defined by that kiss. I spent years turning down other lesbian roles.’

But she says the time feels right to revisit the subject when she stars in the second series of The Girlfriend Experience, which will be shown next year on Amazon.

‘My 11-year-old daughter’s generation will never even think there’s an issue with being gay, straight, bisexual, whatever,’ she says.

‘The next generation is already educated and maybe this is something I started.’