Kelly's comeback

MODEL-turned-actress Kelly Brook enlisted the help of Newcastle taxi drivers to help prepare for her first leading role on the big screen.

Her role in the comedy School For Seduction requires her to adopt both Italian and Geordie accents, so learning to do them properly was vital for the 25-year-old Kent-born lads mag pin-up.

"I had a voice coach to teach me the Italian accent," she says. "I mastered that first, watching lots of old Italian movies with Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani. I've always been a fan of those and to emulate them was like a dream come true.

"I left the Geordie accent until I arrived in Newcastle for filming. You're riding around in taxis in the town centre and just hear the drivers speaking. I'd talk to them and get them to tell me about their lives. I just picked up the accent from listening to people."

She modelled her accent on the film's writer-director Sue Heel, who comes from Newcastle and is what's been called a "posh Geordie" accent. Being around local people on the film set was an asset too. "The girls in the cast were really helpful and if I slipped up they'd say, 'No, like this'," she adds.

Brook was back in the city, with American actor boyfriend Billy Zane, for this week's premiere of the movie. She and Zane, who was one of the stars of Titanic, met on the set of the US thriller Three earlier this year. Her split with her long-time boyfriend, Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels actor Jason Statham, attracted a lot of media attention. She's since said that "the love I had for this man and the love Billy had for me - it just took over."

She's more coy about the start of their mutal attraction. As an Italian temptress who teaches the art of seduction on screen, it's not unreasonable to inquire how Zane seduced her. "He didn't have to," she says. "He's very charming, intelligent and extremely good-looking, so didn't have to try very hard at all. I suppose I had to seduce him."

Further details are not forthcoming. "That's for me to know," she says. As for marriage, she's tight-lipped about that too. "I don't know, you ask him. We will see," she says.

Brook faced media attention before when she quit C4's The Big Breakfast amid tabloid claims that she was about to be fired for being too dumb. She'd moved into presenting after starting modelling professionally at 16 and became a regular, in various states of undress, on the pages of glossy men's magazines. As she's studied dance, drama and singing at Italia Conte Stage School, an acting career wasn't a surprise.

The furore that surrounded her departure from The Big Breakfast helped her play Sophia in School For Seduction. For she leaves Italy to start a new life elsewhere. Brook took herself off to America until all the fuss died down. That ability to pick herself up and start all over again was something that Heel saw in Brook and made her think she was perfect casting for Sophia. "She's gorgeous, yes, but more relevant than that is her strength," says Heel

Brook herself takes much the same line, admitting to feeling the pressure of her first leading screen role. "It was the first thing I was going to do in this country and that people were going to see since The Big Breakfast. So I was really nervous," she says.

"I'd wanted to come back to England for so long to do something and it had to be something good. It was exciting, nerve-racking, but a dream come true. It was the best of everything.

"When I read the script, this character was very much about a girl who had been beaten down a lot, and needed to move on and start afresh. I just thought of my professional experience in England, of having to go away and start afresh in a new life. I completely related to that in the character."

She certainly had a good time in Newcastle making the movie with co-stars that included Margi Clarke. Dervla Kirwin, Emily Woof and local girl Jessica Johnson, who won a talent search for a role in the picture.

She admits they had a few "sneaky nights on the town" during filming. "It was funny in the mornings when we were in the make-up trailer. Everyone was smoking and talking about the night before. It was like girls getting ready to go on a night out. We didn't feel we were making a movie, so it was great."

It was her first visit to the city. "I was so impressed by the architecture and museums. I just thought 'Wow'. The nightlife is incredible and I was so shocked that everyone goes out without a coat, because it's so freezing," she says.

As for what tips she picked up about seduction, she's not saying. "I think the film is all about being confident in yourself. As long as you feel good, it comes from that."

Despite her time in the US, she says that England is still home. "I go to LA to work out of necessity, but I love coming home," she says.

* School For Seduction (12A) opens in cinemas on Friday.

Published: 02/12/2004