The former star of The Office is back on British TV in a brand new ITV1 romantic comedy Married Single Other about three couples with wildly differing relationship issues... Tell us about your character, Lillie... "She works for a woman’s refuge, for abused women. She’s been with Eddie, played by Shaun Dooley, for 16 years. She has two children who are 11 and 16 and she won’t marry Eddie. He asks her every single year on her birthday." Why won’t she marry him? "She says no because she’s been working in this refuge and she sees this other side of marriage – that it destroys love in her eyes. She tells Eddie that she loves him too much and that’s why she won’t marry him. She’s quite a feisty little thing and quite forceful with her opinions." Your character seems one of the happiest of the six? "Yes – Babs and Dickie (Amanda Abbington and Dean Lennox Kelly) are the other couple who are married, but they are going through huge troubles and then there is Ralf Little’s character who is a bit of a playboy. Eddie and Lillie are lovely. They care so much – they’re not soppy or daft." Why did you want to do this part? "I wanted to play Lillie out of all of them. I’m usually not similar at all to my characters, but I love Lillie’s attitude to life – just get on with it, doesn’t wallow." Your character has a 16-year-old son... You don’t look old enough to be a mum to a 16-year-old! "Thanks for saying that! I don’t think I’ve ever played a mum before. I can’t remember. At first I kept going round introducing people to Tom who plays my son and telling them his age, which is 19, expecting people to say ‘he can’t be your son’ but nobody ever did that so I stopped. Obviously I’m not a mum, apart from to my dog, Gracie. And I must stop comparing what people’s babies do to what my dog, Gracie, does. I have to remember she’s not a baby – she’s a dog." It’s fair to say there are comparisons between this and Cold Feet? "I loved Cold Feet, I was a huge fan. In the fact that it has three couples and it's Leeds, yes it is similar. But nobody is going to pick anything rubbish to compare it to. We should be so lucky to be as good as Cold Feet. I loved it and was devastated when it finished. I related a lot to Jenny – Faye Ripley’s character." You live in LA now – is that where you call home? "I suppose Los Angeles is my home now. I never intended to live there and just woke up there and realised that I do. Mainly because my husband Owain is filming nine months of the year there. I miss London specifically, I do love being back over here. It’s such a buzz, I love the [National] Portrait Gallery and the history of England is just right here, everywhere you look." *Married Single Other screens on ITV1 on Monday, February 22 at 9pm (except STV)
