Articles
Not until
filming the latest series of Wire in the Blood was Simone Lahbib finally
introduced to her co-star Robson Green.
“Not only had we never worked together before; we hadn’t
even met,” the 41 year old Scottish Actress reveals. “But
I needn’t have worried – he’s fantastic: funny and
helpful and warm and a professional to his fingertips.
Simone has become the latest female star of the gritty police drama,
following the departure of Hermione Norris, who played Carol Jordan.
Simone’s character, Detective Inspector Alex Fielding, takes
over from a tough DI Jordan – but unlike her predecessor she
has little time for Robson’s psychologist profiler, Dr Tony
Hill.
“Her view is that he’s not even part of the police force
– and there’s certainly no flirting between the two of
them.” Simone reveals. But inevitably, when Tony leads Alex
to a succession of serial killers, she’s forced to revise her
opinion.
It’s a meaty role, fitting for Simone who first dreamed of acting as a teenager. While there was otherwise no hint of show business in the family, Simone – whose unusual surname comes from her French Algerian Father Joseph, a chef who came to Stirling in the 1960’s – won a place at the Manor School of Ballet in Edinburgh in her teens. During Christmas holidays came paid jobs in panto, and it was then she got bitten by the acting bug. Three years at Queen Margaret University also in Edinburgh gave her grounding she felt she needed.
Good roles in Scottish theatre followed, but it became increasingly clear that if she was to move into television, she was going to have to relocate to London. Once there, she almost immediately won a part in the TV Series London Bridge.
Although there was a spell when she had to manage a café to meet her mortgage repayments, Simone has had a steady flow of work – everything from The Young Person’s Guide to Being a Rock Star to Monarch Of The Glen. She also played prison officer Helen Stewart in the first three series of Bad Girls, another show that was a big hit.
Despite her successes it
is another show Simone recalls with the greatest affection –
and for altogether more personal reasons. In 1997, after being cast
in the third series of Thief takers, she went for a script reading.
“I happened to notice a new actor sitting around the table.
I’d been single for a few months and I must admit he caught
my eye.” She says.
The actor turned out to
be Raffaello Degruttola, born in London of Italian parents and hired
to play a Mafioso in the show. Clearly the attraction was mutual.
“Raff, as I now know him, told someone else in the cast that
he’d be taking me out with a couple of weeks. Cheeky so and
so!” But true, nevertheless. Two weeks after that, he told Simone
that one day she’d be his wife. “Even so it took him another
6 years to propose formally.” The couple married in May 2003.
“Raff is seven years
younger than me,” says Simone. “And I was conscious of
not pushing him into fatherhood. On the other hand I was 38 by then,
and I knew I very much wanted to be a mother one day.”
Their daughter Skye will be one in October and she is, says Simone,
the most beautiful little girl the world has yet seen. “Now
I want at least one more before its too late. Motherhood has been
everything I hoped for – and more. It’s made me realize
that I’m not the most important person in the world. I think
that’s a healthy discovery, particularly perhaps for an actor.”
She adds.
Interview Richard Barber.