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Cold Feet's Leanne Best: 'It would be a foolish woman who said no to Adam'
Leanne Best is an English actress, born in Liverpool. She is best known for her roles as Jane Cobden in the BBC series Ripper Street and Celia Donnelly in Fortitude. She is currently starring in the revamped ITV comedy series Cold Feet, which airs on Monday nights at 9pm.
The return of Cold Feet on Monday nights has undoubtedly cheered a good portion of Britons eager to take up with the old cast - Jen and Pete, Karen and David - now that they have hit mid-life. Most of all, we have been itching to see loveable, selfish, irresponsible, sexy Adam (played by James Nesbitt) who we last saw 15 years ago, knocked sideways with grief when wife Rachel (Helen Baxendale) was hit and killed by a car.
But two episodes in and already – in true Cold Feet style – fans are finding themselves hurling advice (and some pithy imprecations) at Adam through the screen just as they did in the 90s. He may have found a lovely new bride, Angela (played by Karen David), 20 years younger than himself, and a billionaire’s daughter to boot, but Adam, how can we stress this enough - you are with the wrong woman!
Because the right woman – under his nose, and presently being drawn into the role of gentle witty sidekick – is clearly his droll Mancunian landlady Tina, played by Leanne Best in deliciously mysterious fashion.
Today, relaxing away from the heatwave in a cool panelled room upstairs in a London members club, green smoothie to hand, Best is just as eager to discuss her new role. The 37-year-old Liverpudlian has hardly been off our screens in the past few years with appearances in Ripper Street, Fortitude, Line of Duty and Home Fires for television, and in films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But joining this nationally well loved series is a different proposition – especially in such a potentially seminal role. So Leanne, you and Adam? Do you…?
“It is a testament to the show,” says Leanne, carefully, “that people are so invested in Adam and his tragedy. He’s been through so much and now we want him to be happy. Quite naturally, everyone is thinking, who is the best person for him?
“His new wife seems lovely. Is that the right fit for him? Time will tell. After all, the drama in life is in the messy parts when you are trying to find your place.”
If she got the chance to pair up with Adam, how would Tina feel? Leanne throws back her head and laughs, “Oh it would be a foolish woman who said no to Adam.”
She agrees: “She’s a good mate for Adam. I love that she is a real mix. There’s a slight smattering of bonkers, she’s funny, flawed, she’s a little bit out there.”
It seems to be a fair description of Leanne, too, whose consciously laidback but grounded approach to life seems reflected in her childhood.
Growing up in a large family – which includes Leanne’s identical twin sister Sarah – in Liverpool, she was not remotely interested in performing.
“I was a really rambunctious kid, with loads of energy so my mother signed me up for a local dance group when I was about four. But it didn’t last. I was utterly terrible, dreadful, I wasn’t girly at all.”
Her mother suggested she try sport instead, and Leanne found she was a natural athlete, running competitively, including for England at 16.
After A-levels, Leanne left school, unsure what to do with her life, and backpacked around India, before working in a café. Her mother came to the rescue again, having spotted a summer school at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. “I was so surprised by how much I loved acting, and to be honest I was surprised that I was quite good at it too.”
She was encouraged to apply for their three-year degree and got on the course. “My tutor told me I was a rough diamond but I had something. And when I did have a moment of self-doubt, my father said, ‘I’ve got a feeling if you leave you will regret it. You need to see it through'.”
With the current debate about whether acting is becoming a “posh” profession – James Corden said last month he feared it was becoming an “elitist sport” – could she have afforded to study drama now?
“I think it is good we are having the conversation about diversity at the point of access.
“I think you can do it. I’m not saying everybody has it easy; a lot of people had it much harder than me. I wasn’t Oliver Twist.
“However, you have to remember this is a tough game. You have this personal struggle with rejection. I used to pinball around London having auditions thinking, ‘I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing’.”
She still finds rejection difficult, she says. “It still smarts. I’d like the magic balm, the salve you can put on yourself” – she gestures to her heart – “when a role goes to someone else.”
“I do manage it. But there may be tears if I really wanted it.”
Where she always feels she belongs is Liverpool, where she has performed frequently at the Everyman Playhouse. Why does the city produce so many good actors?
“Everyone in Liverpool is a raconteur,” she says. “From the cabbie at the train station to the girl singing in the band; everyone’s got a story.
“And Liverpool hasn’t had the easier ride in the way it’s been portrayed for a long time. I think its answer has been to respond with laughter and vibrancy.”
Is she the strong Northern woman of myth or even cliché? “It was never a novel idea to me that women were strong, capable and grounded. You know, sometimes the goddess strews flowers and sometimes she has a flaming torch.”
She worries that “somewhere along the line” the word feminist has picked up a taboo “energy” around it. “I want to be absolutely a woman and have the life I would like to have. To be paid the same as a man, not pay tax on my tampons, I’d like affordable childcare so I can make choices on my ability to a job rather than how I can fit it around a young family.
“I’m having those conversations with my friends, but most men I know feel the same. They don’t want to be in stereotypical roles. It puts everyone at a disadvantage, creates an unease no one particularly wants.”
Leanne is – like Tina in Cold Feet – currently unattached. “I’m married to the Virgin Pendolino between Liverpool and Euston,” she laughs.
Would she like her friends to try and fix her up, as Jenny attempts to for Karen? “I like things to be less organised. Everybody knows better than trying to shoe horn me out of pyjamas when I’m in front of a box set to go out.”
Indeed, she’s happy in her own company – “I like to go to the cinema alone, to go to galleries by myself. I think it’s important to have time to have a conversation with yourself” – and is refreshingly fearless.
Recently, she went horse trekking in Colorado, fulfilling a long-held dream. “I thought, I’m not going to find anyone else to do this, so it’s up to me to go alone. I can choose to have an adventure.”
She adds: “Sometimes when I was younger I told myself I couldn’t do things, and then I thought of that saying by artist Georgia O’Keefe: ‘I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing that I wanted to do.’
Which sounds like it might be a good motto for her to share with Adam in Cold Feet too. If, of course, he ever spots what the nation got in a warm heartbeat – that Tina really is the only possible replacement for Rachel.