" Daily Mail " U.K
Saturday, January 15 1994

Louise Lombard talks to Lester Middlehurst

DESCRIPTIVE words like stunning,beautiful or glamorous do not sit comfortably with me. When they are used about me I take them with a pinch of salt.

If any woman has had some kind of exposure on television then there is going to be a pool of adjectives used to describe her. I certainly don't see myself as fitting any of the descriptions used about me.

I have to look a certain way when I'm playing Evie in "The House of Eliott" because she is a designer and she has to have a consciousness about what she wears.

But I am very unaware of how I look. I hate shopping and i'm not interested in clothes.

I was once described as "The Mouse of Eliott"

Because of that attitude and that sits much more comfortably. I believe it is a waste of time thinking about how you would like to be. You are what you are and that's a miracle in itself.

I care about appearing to be as versatile as possible and not stuck playing pretty roles.

Because of the part of Evie, people might get a wrong impression of what i'm like.

I went to Manchester to do a play and after a week of rehearsals an actor said to me: 'I thought you were this typical English rose who comes from an upper middle-class background.'

But that image was certainly dispelled within a few days of knowing me.

ANOTHER time a friend's cousin came over because she wanted to meet me. My hair was in a mess and I was wearing glasses.

SO after she'd met me she said to my friend: "'But she doesn't look like she looks on television".' That's good, because it means I don't always get recognised.

I don't think much about being famous, although I'm certainly not the 'I want to be alone' type. When I went over to New York recently the steward on the plane recognised me. He kept bringing me champagne and then said the pilots wanted to meet me. That was great because I got to sit in the cockpit.

And over Christmas I opened a magazine and this astrologer predicted i was going to have a romance with a titled gentleman and go to Hollywood. I was very amused at the idea of someone, somewhere, sitting down and deciding what was going to happen to me.

I am ambitious in that I have my own vision of what I want to do, and I don't take any notice of what other people might say.

At school the teachers laughed at me when I said I wanted to be an actor. They made an example of me by making fun of me.

It was their way of getting me back on the track in terms of where they, saw me going - taking my "O" -levels and going to university.

I don't think it was malicious, but at the time all I could see were these people standing in the way of what I wanted to do by ridiculing my aspirations.

When I was five, my mum sent me to ballet classes. There were drama classes In the same church hall, so I used to pop out of ballet and watch the drama class. Ballet wasn't my thing, so I switched to the drama class.

When I was 13, an agent saw me in one of the classes and got me work on a few commercials and something for Channel 4.

My parents weren't keen on me taking time off from school, so the work i did was fairly minimal.

When I had finished taking 0-levels, my agent had work lined up for me, so I didn't go back to school. I couldn't justify spending another five years in education when it wasn't leading to what I wanted to do.

My parents were keen for me to go to university, but they acknowledged that I had always been quite clear and vocal about what I wanted to do.

Being the fifth of seven children helped. If I had been the eldest it might have been different. They're proud of all of us. I get my five minutes of showing off round the table and then it's on to the next brother or sister.

My parents are probably the biggest influence in my life. I still find myself listening to them when I'm taking a decision. I have a very good relationship with my father. If I have problems, I can talk them through with him. He's a very wise man.

He would say that at the end of the day, when your head hits the pillow, you have to deal with what you've done that day. And if you can't face that, then something's got to change.

My mother Is a strong woman - very much a fighter - and I think i've inherited my strength, which some people might call stubbornness, from her.

Bringing up seven children is a feat in itself.

She is also a Roman Catholic and it takes strength to stand by what you believe in a society that doesn't necessarily share those beliefs. I had a Catholic up-bringing - church every Sunday - and I am still religious, but there are a lot of things in Catholicism I don't agree with, so at this time in my life I find it difficult to go to church every Sunday and accept everything that is said, What I do know in that I have this belief at if you go round doing ill to people, somehow it's going to come back on you.

Because of my Irish background. I do have this romantic notion that one day I might buy a place in Ireland. I went there last year for the first time in a very long while, and it was like a homecoming.

People sometimes think I'm a bit mad in the way that I conduct myself, but when i go to Ireland i can see where that characteristic comes from.

I am a very emotional person and I believe that is because the Irish are far more extreme with their emotions. I was brought up by a mother who would be laughing one minute and crying the next. She is the ultimate drama queen. I've inherited that along with independence and stead-fastness which, to me, are all Irish trait's.

So when I am 33. I might have a little house just outside Dublin on the east coast. But apart from that. I don't really have a life plan. I would like to have done some good quality work but that's about all.

I don't see marriage as being inevitable. It might happen, but then again, it might not. Being one of seven children makes me think it would be nice to create that family thing. Yet there is also that feeling that I never want to have anything to do with children, because you've had enough of your siblings to last a lifetime.

I had to look after my nephew for a day recently and I was exhausted by the end of it, so if a family does happen. It will be a long time down the road.

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