Michelle Keegan talks about the new series of Our Girl
Michelle Keegan shares the joys of filming the new series of Our Girl… and looks back on the effects of Elvis’ shock death
Since leaving CoronationStreet four years ago, Michelle Keegan has become sterling proof that there’s life after soaps.
Stepping off the cobbles has seen Michelle land juicy, dramatic roles, most notably as army medic Georgie Lane in BBC1’s OurGirl.
The action-packed military series, which returned to our screens last week, has thrown more physical challenges at Michelle than she ever faced as Corrie’s Tina McIntyre. In OurGirl, Michelle has endured a real army boot camp and months of filming in 40°C heat in the South African desert and Malaysian jungle, which are doubling for Nigeria, Belize and Bangladesh.
Michelle admits it’s been tough. “The intense heat is quite unbearable at times,” says the 30-year-old actress. “But your body does become used to it. As soon as we were in the heat, we started sweating from 10am until the evening – our T-shirts looked like we’d been in a swimming pool. But we just got on with it and it became the norm.
“We had no make-up, just tinted moisturiser. In South Africa it wasn’t too bad, but in Malaysia we were sweating beads of foundation!”
In person, Stockport-born Michelle is funny, chatty and down to earth, as well as strikingly pretty. She and the young cast of OurGirl showed grit during their filming ordeal, even though it was particularly difficult for Michelle – filming away from home for eight months last year meant she was parted from her husband of four years, Mark Wright, the TV presenter who now works mostly in the USA.
“I came home in August for just two weeks,” explains the self-confessed home girl.
“All the actors were in the same boat and if someone had a bad day, we would just pick them up. We all wanted the show to be good and had to throw ourselves in it.
“You know it’s not forever, so it’s all an experience.”
And what an experience, too. OurGirl is a gritty action drama with a helping of romance thrown in.
Michelle’s army medic character, Georgie Lane, ended up heartbroken at the end of the last series when her on-off love interest, fellow soldier Elvis Harte, played by Luke Pasqualino, was blown up by an Afghan bomb shortly after he and Georgie declared their love for each other at last, and became engaged.
Michelle was gratified that OurGirl fans were as devastated as Georgie over this tragic turn of events.
“I was in Malaysia filming at the time and it was 6am there when it aired in the UK,” she recalls with a laugh. “I looked at my phone and it had gone crazy. What was great was that it hadn’t been released that Elvis was going to get killed, so it was obviously a massive shock for the audience.
“I just remember that all the women’s hearts on Twitter were broken that night.”
The new series of OurGirl sees Georgie on a new mission with her unit, 2-Section, in Nigeria.
“She’s had six months out grieving and is now throwing herself into work,” explains Michelle. “She’s definitely not over Elvis at all and you’ll see throughoutg the episodes p
“We’d work six-day weeks then see each other on our day off”
that his death has really affected her.”
Michelle admits that Luke’s departure from the show affected her, too; they’d become fast friends.
“Luke and I started on the series at the same time and it was so odd when he left. It took a long time for me to adjust, as all our storylines were always based around Georgie and Elvis and the ‘will they, won’t they’ situation.”
But the camaraderie you see onscreen was real enough, and the OurGirl actors became as thick as real soldiers in combat, explains Michelle.
“I can’t get away from them – I’ve been texting them this morning!” She laughs. “We’re all mates. You spend so much time together and it’s so intense, as you’re working six-day weeks.
“But we’d also see each other on our day off. So when we finished it was like going cold turkey – we didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
“The military advisers told us it was exactly the same in the Army.”