Brookside actress Anna Friel has gone American in her new television series, Pushing Daisies, in which she comes back from the dead. Steve Pratt reports

ANNA Friel has an unexpected influence for the character she plays in the ITV1 import, hit US TV series Pushing Daisies - her daughter Gracie.

The former Brookside actress says she bases Charlotte "Chuck"

Charles on her child, who'll be three in August.

Chuck is an unusual heroine as she's actually dead, but is brought back to life by childhood sweetheart Ned. One touch from him and dead people come back to life. A second touch and they're stone cold dead again. If they stay alive longer than a minute, someone else dies instead.

Friel explains that Chuck is experiencing life for the first time, rather like Gracie.

"She has a wonderment and sense of excitement. But to maintain happiness and a spirit and energy like this for 17 hours a day, five days a week, has been far more testing than I could ever imagine," she says.

It's a long way from Liverpool-set soap Brookside to a big US TV series, but Friel is making a succcess of the move with Pushing Daisies, which was nominated for three Golden Globe awards.

"We all knew it was something special when we first got involved with the project," she says. "But we didn't realise other people would recognise it so quickly. It's inventive and something very special on TV that people haven't seen before.

"The most difficult thing is explaining the show to people, particularly in England. They say I'm sorry? What is it you're doing in America? It sounds weird'.

"It's one of those shows that you really, really do have to watch."

She just likes to describe it as a modern romantic fairy tale. "I knew from reading the script that it was going to be wonderful, but I didn't realise how wonderful," she says.

"We have to wear sunglasses on set sometimes because it's so bright. It gives the show that storybook illustration feel or a Forties-style romantic comedy.

"I think the true sense of romance in this series is particularly special and goes back to all those 30s or 40s movies where all you're waiting for is one kiss at the end. I think people love that.

And I also think it makes them laugh."

Playing someone from the other side of the Atlantic doesn't present a problem. She just stays in her American accent all day when filming. "We don't get driven to the studio so I drive myself to work and, from the minute I arrive on the set, I'm American Anna," she says.

"Then, at the end of the day, I go back to my own accent. The crew think it's funny when I speak English. They say why are you talking in that silly accent? What is that accent?'.

"If I phone my mum when I'm at work she doesn't like me talking in an American accent. I don't know why I stay in the accent all day, it's just become a kind of superstitious discipline now."

One of her other recent accents was Geordie for the feature film Goal and its sequel Goal 2.

To get into character on Pushing Daisies, she and co-star Lee Pace tried to go for a week without touching at all on set, a reflection of their on-screen relationship which means Chuck will die if Ned touches her again.

"We didn't do too well. We're both, particularly me, incredibly tactile. By day three I was dead three times," says Friel.

In the TV series, she and piemaker Ned investigate unexplained murders with the help of Emmerson Cod (Chi McBride).

It's easy for Ned to find out whodunit - he can touch the corpse and ask the "dead" person to name their killer.

Creator, writer and executive producer Bryan Fuller says his main motivation was just to do something fun. "We're going to go a long way to do everything we can to get them to touch each other that's not flesh-to-flesh. And I think if the show ends - hopefully it will never end - it will end with a kiss."

Pace starred in Fuller's previous TV series Wonderfalls. What he loves about his new character Ned is that he's someone who gives life.

"He's a good guy, a good-hearted person. He brings positivity and generosity to people. His life is complicated and he lives a very sheltered funny life, but he's got a gift," he says.

"He's not one of those anti-heroes who's going to destroy his life and everyone around him. We're putting something out into the world that's a good thing.

"It's so much fun to play as it gets more complicated. And I'm so appreciative of working with someone like Anna. She works so hard and isn't one of those actress who's happy just to look pretty in front of the camera."

* Pushing Daisies begins on ITV1 on Saturday at 9pm.

11:03am Thursday 10th April 2008

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