Back to school Sarah (From The Northern Echo)

Back to school Sarah

10:44am Thursday 17th December 2009

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Sarah Harding says she’s still learning how to be an actress after starring in her third film. But a reunion of reality TV girlband, Girls Aloud, is likely to take place next year. Steve Pratt reports.

WHILE Cheryl Cole has been busy releasing a single and helping Geordie Joe win The X Factor, fellow Girls Aloud performer Sarah Harding has been working on her acting career.

She plays rebellious schoolgirl Roxy in the second in the revived St Trinian’s series ,The Legend Of Fritton’s Gold, alongside Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and David Tennant.

It’s actually her third feature film, following a brief appearance in the first modern-day St Trinian’s in 2007 and the thriller Bad Day. There was also a role in the BBC drama Freefall earlier this year.

She’s said before that she’s still learning to be an actress and learnt more on St Trinian’s. “But it’s a work in progress. I was trained to act in the past but no one really knew that so it’s a case of getting that out there,” she says.

“I just want to build it up gradually because there’s always a lot of speculation when you do that transition from singing to acting over here for some reason. You almost feel like you have more to prove.

“So I’m going to do it properly. I have an acting coach I work with and if I’m luckily enough to get another part then I will take that script with me to her and I will start working and researching the character. I’m not taking it lightly.”

She sees Roxy as a more laidback version of herself. “She’s too cool for school and she’s not a team player to start with. She doesn’t feel like she needs anyone and doesn’t really feel like she is going to be hanging around for long,”

explains 28-year-old Harding.

“But then she gets involved with some of the things that are going on and starts getting more excitable and losing her cool slightly towards the end and starts to get really close to the girls, whereas in the beginning she didn’t really want to know them. So it’s a nice journey and relationship you see develop between her and the girls.”

She shares a few scenes with the soonto- be-ex Doctor Who, David Tennant, who’s playing the film’s baddie. “He’s great. I didn’t actually realise he is Scottish,” she confesses.

“When I first met him I was like ‘bloody hell, you’re a Scot.’. I’d always assumed that he was English because of his wellspoken accent on Doctor Who. I’d never spoken to him before.

“But he’s a lovely fella. Colin Firth is a sweetheart; Rupert is very, very funny – very dry.”

She’s recorded three songs for the film soundtrack, seeing the material as “kind of half way from what I would want to be doing as a solo artist but a little bit different from what I would do as a band”.

Does that make sense?, she wonders. “It suits the film, but it wouldn’t necessarily be the sort of material I’d do on a personal level for my own album.

“Obviously I like what I’ve done otherwise I wouldn’t have done it, if you know you what I mean. It’s right for the film and I had a little involvement with the writing and the melodies and that sort of thing.”

She’s not sure when Girls Aloud will be back together but reckons it will happen next year. “I’m not sure what we’ll be doing, I’m not sure if we’ll tour, but we’ll get together in 2010 for something,” she says.

Meanwhile, she’ll be pursuing acting roles. She has scripts to read and when she thinks a part is right she’ll go for. One thing she’s not going to do is rush into it, preferring to wait and get it right.

There was speculation in the papers that she might be taking a part in The Brazilian Job, a follow up to The Italian Job. “Well that’s a good example of how much crap is out there because I’ve never even heard of that,” she says.

“I don’t know what they are talking about. I don’t read too much anymore, I just look at the pictures and go ‘is that a good picture?’ OK, that’s fine...(laughs).

I’d rather not get too wrapped up in all that stuff. You just have to laugh it off.

Another of her interests is opening a nightclub in London called Kanaloa, a sister club to Mahiki. How much input has she had? “They’ve asked my opinion on certain things, but obviously there isn’t really that much difference from the styling of Mahiki,” she says.

“I find it really cool because there isn’t really anything like that in East London.

It’s a sister club to Mahiki and it’s a going to be more of a Monday to Friday kind of place and we want to get some fun into what is usually a very business orientated area.”

As someone who’s been photographed in and coming out of a good few clubs, it seems appropriate to ask her what makes a good club. “Good music, good people, some nice food – snacks and things like that always help – friendly faces, good service, good decor, things like that. It’s a combination of things.

“My boyfriend Tom plays a lot at clubs and I’ve been to a lot of those with him and it’s like when you eat out at restaurants, you get an idea of what you like and what works.

“And I have a really good eye for things like interior design. I’ve done my own house and things like that. And like I said it’s going to be on par with the Mahiki style, French Polynesian. It’s going to be wicked.”

■ St Trinian’s: The Legend Of Fritton’s Gold (PG) opens in cinemas tomorrow.

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