`I love being a mum again'.
Byline: By Will MarlowIt's been a while since we last saw Sarah Lancashire on screen.
For a long time she was barely off television, becoming one of the small screen's leading lights after she left Coronation Street and secured a "golden handcuffs" deal with ITV.
These days things are a bit different for the actress. She's still one of the most recognisable faces on television but once she was free from her deal with ITV she took a long break - in no small part due to her becoming a mother for the third time.
"I haven't been tied to anyone since 2002 now," she says. "And I wouldn't go back to that. I would find it difficult because I don't want to do that amount of work.
"Not because I've got a little one, but very simply because there's less drama being made. Of what is available, there is some great quality pieces around and I guess I'd rather do the quality than the quantity."
Sarah, 39, gave birth to her third son Joseph - she already has two sons from her previous marriage, Thomas, 16, and 13-year-old Michael - in April last year.
With two stepsons as well, following her marriage to BBC TV executive Peter Salmon not long before the birth of their child, the actress says she doesn't mind living in such a male environment.
"I come from a family of boys," says the sister of three brothers, one her twin. "That's been my life anyway."
Although the 18 months she took off from her acting work marked the longest gap between jobs she had ever had in her working career, Sarah says she didn't find it hard adapting to life as a mum at home.
"It was the biggest break I'd ever had in my working life of nearly 20 years," she says. "But it wasn't different in any sense. I just loaded the washing machine more often. And cooked a baby," she quips. "And then got back to work really."
Ever the consummate professional, Oldham-born Sarah, who now lives in Richmond in Surrey, also found it easy to get back into work when she took on her first job after her break - directing a BBC Afternoon Play called Viva Las Blackpool.
"Leaving Joseph wasn't a wrench at all," she says. "I was ready to go back to work. I love being a mum again but I missed working a great deal."
Now we're about to see the fruits of her return to being in front of the camera lens, in the first full-length series of investigative drama Rose And Maloney, which comes after the successful pilot screened in 2002.
It follows the nowhere- near-the-book investigations of Rose Linden, the unconventional investigator for the Criminal Justice Review Agency played by Sarah, and her sidekick Maloney, played by White Teeth star Phil Davis.
In the three two-part films they probe some controversial cases.
"Unlike Rose I didn't tend to let these stories affect me personally," says Sarah. "There's a danger as actors that you can assume the emotional weight of other people's problems when you're simply not qualified to understand that degree of distress.
"You have to approach the work with pragmatism and a degree of respect for those who have truly known the experience.
"But I think Rose herself becomes very emotionally involved because of how driven and passionate she is. She's on this sort of crusade.
"But Maloney is very much her conscience and the person who moderates her behaviour. They're very necessary to each other. They bring out the best and worst in each other."
Now that filming on Rose And Maloney has finished, Sarah is taking it easy. The only project she has lined up is a TV job for later in the year.
She won't even be putting much effort into celebrating her landmark 40th birthday in October.
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| Publication: | Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England) |
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| Date: | Jul 2, 2004 |
| Words: | 645 |
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