Hannah Spearritt Leaves Pop Career Behind

Hannah Spearritt shot to global fame as part of seven piece pop group S Club 7 enjoying a string of hits all over the world.

But when the band split Hannah turned to acting landing one of the core role as Abby in ITV’s sci-fi series Primeval, the third series begins in the new year. I caught up with her to discuss the new series and what lies ahead for her character as well as talking to her about the Pringles Select competition.

Series 3 of Primeval will be back in the new year what can we expect for Abby in the new season?

Well we have got new characters, new creatures again it gets more brave plus there are more episodes this time as well. Abby’s journey, in terms of something that is different from the previous series, a blast from the past, and I won’t say who, but she has somebody who comes back from her past that shocks people especially Connor shaking up their relationship which is exciting.

Also what’s exciting is that we have new characters we have got Jason Flemming coming into the group and Laila Rouass, new blood was very good on set this time refreshing and changing it up a bit. It’s been a long year because we have done ten episodes this time, instead of six and then seven, and like Andrew said when you are working on something like this your whole world is that so it’s nice at the moment to take a back step and a breather and be Hannah and Andrew at home.

What was it about Abby that drew you to the project?

Completely how strong she was, how feisty she was and how she didn’t rely on anyone else and how she was a strong female really drew me to the part and I think that all those things are really important in human nature to get where you want to be really be.

Also her love for animals it was just a really cool (laughs), Andrew is laughing at me now, we saw a programme last night and this girl was being asked a question by Vanessa Feltz and she was answering it like Miss World and I just reminded myself of her just then. Yeah but the strongness of her character was just really cool.

And how involved are you in the stunt aspect of the show?

As much as I can be but there will be points on set when you are against time, more often than not they will have a stunt double there and they will have your wig on and your clothes, so they are there as back up but I get involved with most of the stunts. But sometimes on series three we were running two sets at the same time she was doing a little bit for me on one set and I was doing a little bit on another set.

Most of us do get involved and, unless it’s too dangerous, from an actors point of view you want to make it as real as possible because they try to move like you but inevitably they can’t I guess but my lady was great.

Everyone knows you from your S Club fame why did you make the switch into acting?

It was something that I have always wanted to do directly before S Club I had come to London and I was doing a show in the West End called Bugsy Mallone so that involved sing dancing and acting and I had tended always to get cast in the acting roles, even though I loved the singing equally, people thought I was a better actor than a singer.

I did the Bugsy Mallone thing and really loved that and directly after that I got an agent because she came to watch the show and she wanted to represent me and the S Club audition came up, I was living in London with a friend, and there was an open audition and we went along for a hoot, it was on a Sunday and we had Sunday’s off, and it kind of went along from there.

I have always mixed the three and to go back to acting it’s always the one I felt most comfortable with. When Primeval came along it has been a big success and people enjoy it, which is fantastic, and to play a character like that I’m really happy to be doing that because at the end of the day there’s not enough work for everybody there’s no guarantees in this industry so at the end of the day I’m pretty chuffed to be working I guess.

The series is getting bigger and bigger how surprised are you by it’s success?

Erm pretty surprised. It’s so difficult to look at the show objectively when you are in but when I look at the show I’m proud of it and I’m happy that people latch on to it, a whole array of people from different generations seem to enjoy it.

When a show is successful it feels great because people are so positive about it and also when you start a show you never thing about how successful the show is going to be you are just in the moment of doing it and trying to do it well I guess. But I’m taken aback by it’s success because there are so many channels out there to get that sort of viewers, and consistently that that amount of viewers, is something to be proud of.

Away from the show you and Andrew are a couple so how difficult is it working together living together?

Yeah we are kind of together a lot. Like I said before it’s really nice, because we have been working most of the year, to get back to Hannah and Andy at home, because of the hours so much gets put on hold that there’s always so much to catch up on when you are on such a long job like that. And I guess we have a working relationship and our normal relationship I think you have to, I don’t know what it’s like for other couple who work together, and some people would hate to be in that situation and some people do it.

But for us we have had to develop and at the beginning it was absolutely amazing because we were falling in love, we weren’t in a relationship I guess which was completely different because we were falling in love while we were working together, but now within a proper relationship you know each others lines and you have to I don’t know I’m not explaining myself very well I’m going to shut up now (laughs).

Why did you decide to get involved with the Pringles competition?

Well like Andrew said they approached us and it’s something that we have never got involved in before and it’s something that we thought would be fun because we do get involved in lots of parties, in our early twenties we used to spend a lot of time going out and now we are in our late twenties we enjoy having people around to the house.

It was really nice to do something together as a couple and that was something that they were really interested in, they wanted to find a young couple, so it fitted perfectly for us and we were excited and we were like yeah why not? We hooked up with them and it has been a happy ending.

Finally what’s next for you?

Finger crossed for a fourth series, it’s looking quite possible, but we will have to wait and see. There are a couple of things floating round but I would ideally like to take from now to Christmas off, and I know that that sounds quite lazy, but we have just bought a house earlier on this year and there is so much that needs doing to the house that if we do end up going for another series I want to try and make sure that the house is in fully working order by the time we are working heavily together. Ideally if I could get something in in January that would be perfect but Iâ€™m enjoying a bit of time off.