The Daniela Denby-Ashe Interview:
From Sister Sarah to Saffy's Daughter
By Tim Wilson
Daniela Denby-Ash, EastEnders' Sarah "I've Seen the Light" Hills, is an cheerfully well adjusted as her television alter ego is intense. I found this out during our lunch at the BBC Television Centre's cafeteria, and it was a great relief, indeed. Daniela's an extremely pretty, sweet and likeable young woman with a truly disarming way about her, as you'll soon discover.
Walford Gazette: Before we start discussing EastEnders and matters relating to it I just have to take the opportunity to tell you that I think you have a very beautiful name.
Daniela Denby-Ashe: Thanks...I like it too!
WG: I once read about an Italian actress named Daniela Biancho an remember thinking I wouldn't mind if my future wife wanted to name our daughter Daniela.
DDA: Hey, I've heard of her as well. There aren't many Danielas around, which can be quite handy. Of course, there's also Daniella Westbrook, who play Sam, but she spells it differently, though.
WG: I also love your last name Denby-Ashe. It's so cool, very classy. I like to say it all aloud, Daniela Denby-Ashe.
DDA: (Looks around nervously and laughs): OK, whatever makes you feel good, I guess! Believe it or not, there's is a story behind my last name. My dad came here when he was twelve. My dad was born in Poland. His name was Miroslaw Pszkit (pronounced SHKEET). Needless to say, when he arrived some people wouldn't learn how to pronounce it properly. So just before he and my mum got married they had a look in the telephone directory. One found the name Denby and the other found Ashe. They couldn't decide between them which name to use so they just put them together with a hyphen in the middle. I'm not Pszkit like my dad; I was born with Denby-Ashe on my birth certificate. So that's where my birth certificate comes from.
WG: Great story. was you mum an immigrant to Britain as well.
DDA: No, she was born here, but both of her parents were born in Poland. Her mum was raised in France, so my relatives are either French or Polish. Hardly any are English.
WG: Did your parents meet at an Anglo-Polish event or something.
DDA: I believe they met in a hotel lobby. Simple coincidence that they were both Polish.
WG: And you were born in London?
DDA: In Northwest London. I've got a brother, who's two years younger than me. He's eighteen and I'm twenty.
WG: So it's now on to the acting questions. When did you start in show business?
DDA: Well, I began dancing at two-and-a-half. ballet. Then at about five came the tap lessons. You know, the sort of stuff a lot of little girls over here get into. By the time I was ten I was dying to get into a theatre school for acting. My parents were dead set against the idea at first because they were concerned that I get a good education but I wore them out! I really wanted to act so badly and conveyed it well enough to my parents that they finally let me audition for a theatre school. It closed down after two months, unfortunately. Luckily I got into another one very soon afterwards called the Corona Academy in Hammersmith. I don't believe it had anything to do with the Mexican beer but you never know! After seven months that one closed down because the head mistress was retiring.
WG: Didn't you begin to think you may be some sort of a jinx?
DDA: No, no, no. It was all fate, nothing to do with me. Any way, one of the secretaries at the Corona Academy opened up her own theatre school and simply brought all the pupils along with her. We didn't have to get a new uniform, which was a relief. That school was called Ravenscourt and I went there from the ages of ten to sixteen.
WG: So did you start working professionally at the age of ten?
DDA: Yes, at first I got silly jobs, like being used as a model to help determine clothes sizes for girls my age. I remember stretching out my arms so they could take down measurements and wondering if I'd ever get to act! Very boring. Eventually I began doing commercials and bits of TV work.
WG: I certainly wouldn't consider playing Saffy's daughter in the final episode of Absolutely Fabulous (in a flash forward sequence) a bit of TV work. You're a part of another classic series, along with EastEnders, aren't you?
DDA: (beaming proudly) I am, aren't I? That was only three days work, but what a fantastic experience. I couldn't believe I got the opportunity to be on it. I knew I could do it when I got called in to read for it.
WG: It was a terrific bit of casting in that there's a real similarity between you and Julia Sawalha, who played Saffy.
DDA: Jennifer Saunders, who wrote the show and played Edina, really thought so too. She remarked it on several times on the set, which really boosted my confidence level. She would say, 'I like this' in a thoughtful sort of way.
WG: It's too bad that your sequence was in the final episode. They could have used the flash forward sequence as a running gag.
DDA: I would have loved that. They did a one-off television film afterwards called The Last Shout.. I was on EastEnders by that time, anyway, although I'd like to think the BBC could've worked out for a way for me to do both. They do own both shows.
WG: How about Ab Fab: the Next Generation?
DDA: I hope you read this Jennifer.
WG: I'll send a copy to her agent.
DDA: Thanks, I'll take your word on that.
WG: How old were you when you started on EastEnders?
DDA: I got to EastEnders just before I turned seventeen. It was just a standard interview situation really, just something my agent sent me to. I went along on a Monday morning, read the script, was asked all the usual questions, blah, blah, blah. And the next day I found I got this part of this fourteen or fifteen-year-old girl named Sarah, I started work the following week.
WG: why is it that so many of the actors on the show appear to have very little time between auditioning, getting cast and starting work? In the sttaes, it can take months.
DDA: I suspect that it may have something to do with the fact that the show wants to provide the press with as little lead time as possible so leaks are kept down to a minimum about who the new actors and characters are. That's just a guess on my part.
WG: It doesn't really give you time to be extra nervous, does it?
DDA: That's one way of looking at it! When Mark Homer, who plays Sarah's sister Tony and I showed up on the set everybody told us how much we looked like Brian Croucher, who plays our dad Ted. That helped to put us at ease, much like what Jennifer Saunders did.
WG: The three of you are yet another in a long line of traditionally wonderful casting work in EastEnders the families always at least look right together.
DDA: Our mother Irene has been brought onto the show, and neither Mark nor I look like her, but somehow it works anyway. Roberta [Taylor] is a brilliant actress.
WG: I've always had a funny feeling that Sarah was in a sense conceived as a sort of younger version of Kathy (Ted's sister). Her initial storyline dealt with unwanted sexual attention, for instance. Her initial storyline dealt with unwanted sexual attention, for instance. I realize that Kathy was raped as a young girl, and Sarah was actually sexually harassed. Another odd parallel I've noticed is that Kathy became involved with the Good Samaritans who do good works and Sara joined a Christian group, which does good works. What do you think?
DDA: That's a very interesting analogy, which may or may not be accurate. But you've got a point. Perhaps the writers subconsciously intended for there to be echoes of Kathy's story in Sara's.
WG: Kathy's schoolgirl rape certainly gave Ted a reason to be almost stifling in his protection of Sara after the harassment incident.
DDA: Especially since there wasn't a mother around, yes. That harassment incident was really a very good way to pull the Hills family into the Square. They were on the run due to the harasser getting pushed off scaffolding at Ted's building site.
WG: Did you feel at all uncomfortable about the show deciding to transform Sarah into such as ardent Christian?
DDA: No, not at all. I thought it was a really interesting way to go with Sarah because she was such a confused and anguished young girl. Her shoplifting was genuinely related to her emotional problems at home. She wasn't just a thief. She desperately needed some help.
WG: I was worried that cult storyline, which has been overdone in soaps and television movies for some time, might develop. I hope she doesn't eventually put on Nike sneakers and kill herself along with a bunch of other sad folk who believe they'll get beamed up to some comet.
DDA: No chance of that ever happening on our show. The entire storyline is being handled so responsibly. The leader of the group, Alistair, is not meant to be perceived as a devilish character out to destroy souls. He's a really human person whose weaknesses are eventually revealed as a sort of hypocrisy. The audience doesn't feel the need to see him explode in flames!
WG: I loved the Blackpool episodes where Sarah was unwittingly slipped some Ecstacy tablets and goes tripping. You were wonderful in conveying Sara's initial confusion which then lead to false exhilaration during the E trip.
DDA: Thanks. I'd personally never taken the drug myself so I spent a month doing research on it by talking to friends who had taken it, as well as reading about it in periodicals and police leaflets. When I got onto the disco set where Sarah is slipped the E I was fitted with black contact lenses to make my pupils look dilated. It felt like I was wearing 10 pairs of sunglasses so I already felt disoriented! I'm glad you think they turned out well. The disco scenes were taped out at BBC White City because the studio space here at Elstree was full up.
WG: And now onto a purely frivolous question. What was it like to be the envy of millions of females all over Britain. You know what I mean.
DDA: Oh, you must mean Paul Nicholls. GREAT, LOVELY! (a wicked laugh.) Paul is a truly lovely guy. we actually became so close that it began to feel like we were brother and sister, which is quite common on this show. One thing we loved to do together was to act out scenes from Friends for anyone who'd listen. Paul played Chandler and I played his whiny girlfriend Janice. We knew all the dialogue by heart! He's an absolute sweetheart. We bicker sometimes too, but it never comes to much because we get along so well. It's part of that brother-sister thing.
WG: You make EastEnders sound like a happy experience.
DDA: It is. I know it sounds boring but it really is. I'd gone to Ravenscourt with Dean Gaffney (Robbie) and so when I started here he took me by the hand and showed me around. There are many lovely people here. Who am I to complain?
WG: Do you have ambitions beyond EastEnders? Sorry, I had to ask that.
DDA: That's okay. it sounds so corny to say "I wanna be in films," but of course that's a dream of mine.It wouldn't necessarily have to be a big-deal Hollywood film. A nice low-budget British film with a good cast and a good working atmosphere would do very nicely, thanks. I'm also gagging to do some theatre. I've only done one play, a prize winner at a playwright's competition at the Royal National Theatre. I certainly hope to do more in the future.
WG: One more trivial question. Do you watch anything else on TV besides Friends?
DDA: To be honest, I really don't watch that much television. I'm sorry, that sounds boring. When I get home from work I like to take my shoes off and start kicking with a bit of music on. I love to read. I hardly watch EastEnders except certain times when I'm on and feel the need to pick apart my performance! I can't bear to watch it with other people, that's for sure. I already mentioned Friends. Hey, you bribed me to do this interview with some brand-new episodes. Cough 'em up, will ya?
WG: I will. I promise. Thanks for the interview Daniela.
DDA: It was my pleasure. All the best to your readers, okay?
Epilogue: Actually, in addition to Friends, I've decided to send her a few episodes of the new series Felicity. Felicity's a fresh-faced, earnest and appealing young woman, and I think Daniela would like her. She'd also be an obvious choice to star in a British adaptation. Stranger things have happened... Hey, the Brit version of That 70s Show has just aired.
