from "Ms London"
19th May 1997
pp. 10-11
"Interview" section
On Guard
Louise Lombard is quite happy to talk about her TV roles. But her personal life is strictly private, as Helen Renshaw discovers.
Louise Lombard is emphatic. Everything about the 25-year-old actress, from her steady blue gaze to the new bleached crop, tells of a woman who knows her own mind -- and is not afraid to speak it. The only problem is getting a word in edgeways. Examples of Lombard-lore flow thick and fast. Despite becoming a household name in "The House of Eliott," she is a thoroughly modern Ms who sees marriage as outdated and spurns projects where women are portrayed as "helpless victims" without a second thought. On a more personal note, Louise emphatically never had an affair with Adam Faith. The notion is absurd. Besides, she has a boyfriend already, thank you very much.
Her favourite word is "huge" and even the expansive hand gestures that go with it are categorical. She literally bristles with energy and glows with the kind of health that's nothing to do with the gym and everything to do with possessing the right DNA. She is certainly beautiful -- having once been voted one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by an American magazine -- with to-die-for cheekbones that result in her name inevitably being prefixed by superlatives such as "gorgeous" and "ravishing."
But hers is beauty with attitude.
For the interview -- at the wine and canapes launch for "Bodyguards" -- Louise selects jeans and trainers and suggests we conduct the interview in the (admittedly grand) ladies' loos. And as for that hair -- a far cry from the sleek bob that was her "House of Eliott" trademark -- it suits her upfront personality. But don't expect it to reveal anything. She's not the navel-gazing type. "I wish I had something interesting to say about it, but I don't," she baldy states.
"When I was younger and got worried about that someone thought of me, my Dad would say: "You can never control what other people think. Just do what feels right and forget about others.' That's been hugely valuable advice.
"I'm intrigued by media people who manipulate their image as part of an overall plan. The idea of being forced to have 'an image' because you're on TV is alien."
In spite -- or perhaps because of -- coming from a raucous working class family of seven children, leaving school at 16 and bypassing drama college, Louise is not one of those who falls into the trap of believing their own hype -- luvviedom is not for her. In short, do not expect to see Louise Lombard gracing the pages of "Hello!" magazine.
She is, however, indulgent of an adoring public who frequently blur fact and fiction. "When I was playing Evie in 'House of Eliott,' people believed I was her," she says. "They'd come up and say things like: 'You shouldn't marry that man.' I thought it was great -- it meant I'd made the role believable. If I've managed to engage people's imagination, I've done my job."
Since getting her first break in TV commercials when she was 13 and graduating through inevitable walk-ons in "Casualty" and "The Bill" to her big break in the ITV drama "Chancer" when she was 18 -- proving wrong her schoolteachers, who poked fun at her ambition to be an actor, in the process -- she has tended to play strong independent women. But though she is loathe to draw comparisons, her character in "Bodyguards," Inspector Liz Shaw -- a tough no-nonsense Special Branch officer turned professional minder -- is in many ways closest to the real Louise.
"We have a lot in common," she concedes. "We're both working class. I see Liz as quite a solitary person and I'm also independent and self sufficient. I'm not one of those people who can't bear to sit along in a room. I love my own company.
"But then, there are times when I feel weak and vulnerable. With someone like Liz Shaw, it comes with the job that she has to overcome that. I'm an emotional person -- but in her job, she has very little time and space to be emotional."
There are, of course, other differences too. Louise cannot see herself stepping in front of a bullet in the line of duty -- and confesses that her legs turned to jelly the first time she had to handle a gun for the role.
For research, she spent time with a real-life female bodyguard who has been responsible for protecting Margaret Thatcher and Nancy Reagan. And she came away believing that female bodyguards don't just have to be as good at the job as their male counterparts -- they have to be far better.
"Liz Shaw does the job because of something in her own childhood, that has made her aware of injustice. She wants to protect the good guys from the bad guys. Of course, real life isn't like that and a bodyguard is just as likely to end up protecting a bad guy. but they don't have the freedom to question the situation -- they are there to protect that person regardless."
Such loyalty is a quality close to her heart. Friends and family are important, as -- one suspects -- is her focus puller boyfriend Jon Stephen, a crew member she met while working on "Bodyguards." Insiders have revealed that the couple appeared madly in love, kissing and cuddling at every opportunity and heading off for a month's holiday in Thailand together as soon as shooting had finished. But Louise is uncharacteristically coy on the subject.
"Yes, it's true that I'm with Jon, but we're not into talking about it," she says. "I'm not being antagonistic -- I just don't see it as part of my job. I appreciate it's part of the job to publicise my work, but I don't have a personal desire to promote myself."
Two years ago, Louise hit the headlines after being photographed rollerblading in Hyde Park with 55-year-old Adam Faith, who had just split from his wife Jackie after 28 years of marriage. Now, the mere mention of that subject is enough to make Louise more emphatic than ever. The wordsflow faster, the pitch gets louder -- the hand gestures larger.
"I mean, I did a job with someone and all of a sudden my name is linked with his for ever more!" she exclaims. "All I did was take a theatre job I got paid peanuts for and -- I got my name associated with someone I don't particularly want to be associated with. Oh! I didn't mean it that way -- but you know what I mean.
"We got on, like you get on with anybody you're working with. It was no big deal. but all of a sudden I had people camping on my doorstep. I had to move out. It was absurd. I said quite clearly at the time: 'This is absolutely rubbish.' But the more I protested, the more I sounded as if I had something to hide.
"Something like that makes you cautious about what you say. Anything can be misinterpreted -- Sean Pertwee, my co-star in "Bodyguards," and I are old mates. We've known each other for years. But if you took our relationship out of context....well, anyone could get the wrong idea.
"There wasn't any point in getting angry, but that whole episode made me feel sick -- quite literally. Some people court attention, then when it backfires you lose sympathy. But I never did it in the first place."
Perhaps the easiest option would be to take herself off the list of eligible bachelor girls by getting married. Such a move would certainly please her devout Irish Catholic parents, but wedding bells could not be farther from her mind.
"I'm not sure how relevant marriage is anymore -- the whole concept of it is being thrown into question," she says. "We're in unusual times in terms of male and female relationships. Women have learnt to be independent. It's easy to be economically independent and socially acceptable to not be married. But men are going through a questioning time -- what their role is in society and in the family.
"When Jane Austen was writing, the goalposts were obvious. Women couldn't earn their own living in those days, so marriage was a career move in itself. You didn't expect to have any passion and accepted that you were probably not going to be in love with the man you married. But that's distasteful to us now.
"I'm not saying marriage should be abolished or anything. I just think the marriage contract should be brought up to date. The current one obviously isn't working -- that's why there are so many divorces. Women aren't paid house servants anymore and that's obviously going to upset the balance of things. I do believe fidelity is important. It's one of the aspects of the marriage contract I agree with -- it's more all that stuff about taking someone else's name that I have a problem with. I mean, hey, I've got my own name thanks very much.
"I'm not saying I'll never get married. But I'm questioning it." She does, however, hope to have children one day -- albeit without necessarily getting married first.
"Of course in an ideal world, it's best for a child brought up with two parents -- I was and it was a fantastic childhood," she says. "But I don't think you can make a bigger commitment than having children. I just don't think I'd need a legal contract. But there's Mum and Dad -- they'd be horrified at the idea of children of out wedlock."
Reports that she has set her heart on full-time fame and fortune in Hollywood (where she was once asked to screen test for Demi Moore's role in "Indecent Proposal") are, she says, wide of the mark.
"I did spend a few weeks in LA, but they're obsessed and talk about films 24 hours a day. That's unhealthy."
At the moment she's content to potter around her cottage in Richmond indulging in her hobby of black and white photography. "I have all sorts of dreams -- one day I'd like a cottage in Ireland, the next live in a hot climate, the next I want to live in New York. But you have to be practical. There are many roles I would love to play. But I don't have a career plan as such. It would be good to have a life, too."
And that is something Louise Lombard does. Most emphatically.
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