I'll never be tempted to walk down the aisle, says Mistresses' Scots star Sharon Small
Sunday Mail, 15 February 2009
"My kids come first... I can't worry about my character when their nappies need changed"
By Steve Hendry
Sharon Small's personal life was never going to run to order in a show called Mistresses but offscreen it's going like clockwork.
The first series of the steamy BBC1 drama about four 30-something friends and their tangled love lives marked the Scots star's return to work following the birth of her son Leo.
And she managed to fall pregnant again and have a second boy, Zac, before filming started on the second series.
She joked: "I whipped them in and out to order. It was fortunate, to say the least.
"I had gone back to work after Leo in August 2007 and got the job on Mistresses not long after that.
"Then when I finished the first series, I fell pregnant again quite quickly and I had Zac before we started again. It's been a bit of a roller coaster on the baby front."
In Mistresses, Sharon and co-stars Orla Brady, Shelley Conn and Sarah Parish play four women all searching for a happy ending.
Shelley's characte Jessica finally becomes the first to tie the knot in the opening episode this week.
Sharon, 41, knows she is lucky enough to have found just that in real life with partner Dan and their sons.
But she has no plans to top it off by walking down the aisle - even though playing the role of Trudi saw her trying on wedding dresses and she surprised herself by enjoying it.
She said: "I've always said, 'I don't want to be a bride' but I came home to Dan and said it was just the best, trying on all these beautiful dresses...but I still don't want to get married!"
Motherhood is proving to be Sharon's biggest and most challenging role yet and the actress, who was born in Glasgow and grew up in Fife, admits juggling her professional life with her sons hasn't been easy, especially with her close family 500 miles away.
She said: "My family are all in Scotland so I couldn't just drop Leo off. I had to take him with me. It's changed everything about the way I approach work.
"Acting is about you and your journey with the character and what you do with it. You get to be self-absorbed to a degree and you lose any time for that when you have children.
"Your children come first. Loving them and keeping them safe becomes paramount.
"It means that when you do work you jus have to get on with it. I don't have that luxury of time and space to spend all my time thinking about what I want to do with a character. I'm more likely to be thinking, 'I've got to go and change that nappy.' "The whole work-life balance is such a hard thing to get right but having kids is the most wonderful and best thing I've done in my life."
In the new series of Mistresses, domestic bliss is a long way off for friends Katie, Trudi, Jessica and Siobhan who are struggling to learn from their past mistakes. Sharon's character Trudi has survived the shock of her husband pretending to have died in the 9/11 disaster and has swapped her 2million compensation money for chaotic family bliss with Richard (Patrick Baladi).
But the domestic harmony doesn't last long as she realises Richard may not quite be the man she thought he was and a rival appears in the shape of a hunky deli owner (Sean Francis).
Sharon said: "Trudi wants to move in with Richard and their children and become one big happy family but it becomes apparent the man of her dreams is not all he appears to be.
"And as it becomes clear Richard has been a little economical with the truth, Trudi makes friends with another gentleman."
The root of the Mistresses' problems remains the same - men and sex - a mix which led to the series being described as a UK version of Sex And The City, something Sharon disputes.
She said: "It has four women in leading parts, has good stories and shows the different facets of fidelity and infidelity.
"We have all been privy to some of these scenarios so everyone can look at the characters and see someone they recognise. I think it focuses on the mistakes which lust can create - trying to show from an emotional point of view that affairs can never really work.
"So while sex and men were part of it, it was about decisions being made on some emotional level from your heart.
"Everyone started out with a philosophy and had to shift after what life had presented to them."
One thing the show definitely doesn't share with Sex And The City is the rumours of rifts behind the scenes. The stars of Mistresses have all become great friends in the making of the series.
Sharon said: "The four of us were staying in the same apartment block this year and it really cemented our relationship. We were like a little family, trooping in and out of each other's places."
Mistresses is yet another hit for Sharon, who is no stranger to success on stage, TV and cinema.
She is best-known as dowdy Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers in long-running series The Inspector Lynley Mysteries and has starred on the big screen in About A Boy and Dear Frankie.
But she admits it will be back to the drawing board now Mistresses has finished.
She said: "I have nothing lined up but that's not unusual so it's back to auditions.
"There's not that much around at the moment but, being a bit older and being a mum, I can relax abit more because there's nothing I can do about it. When I was younger and much hungrier I had more trouble relaxing. But I've been lucky to appear in big parts in BBC dramas, so I can enjoy the time I get with my kids."
It also means she will have the time to bring her sons to Scotland, which is no bad thing as far as her family are concerned.
She laughed: "When I was about to give birth, the big joke was my dad was on the phone saying get the helicopter ready so they could be born in Scotland. My heritage is important to me."
Mistresses is on BBC1 on Tuesday at 9pm.
