Annabel Scholey kicks off her cameo in Jilly Cooper’s Rivals with a bang.
Just nine seconds into the Disney+ adaptation, the 40-year-old actress is seen sporting a perfect pastel pink ’80s skirt suit, sunglasses and red stilettos in the Concorde’s compact bathroom with the protagonist obsessed with Rupert Campbell-Black sex.
As her red nails dig into her lover’s skin, a champagne cork pops to mark the plane’s ascent to a mile high, and moments later the cabin crew begins to wonder why the busy sign is still on.
“I thought when I was in my thirties I’d be doing less of these sexy roles, but I’m getting more and more,” Scholey said. the independent.
“And even if that’s scary, it’s also amazing because I feel like the industry is starting to change.”
Born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 1984, Scholey is the daughter of a nurse and a firefighter. Although he had no acting experience, he attended the Oxford School of Drama with the help of a scholarship.
After graduating in 2005, Scholey landed her first on-screen role as a supporting character in an Agatha Christie series on ITV. That same year, she played Diana Rivers in a BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre, and also appeared in Doctors and Holby City.
While these roles were demanding, they were all relatively PG. But when Scholey landed the role of Nina DeFoe in the legal drama The Split at the age of 34, the dial finally began to turn.
Annabel Scholey was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 1984. She studied at the Oxford School of Drama with the help of a scholarship. Pictured from the BBC program The Split.
Scholey said she loved playing Nina, a high-profile London lawyer with a troubled relationship with alcohol and men.
“(The Split) showed us stories of women in their forties and fifties talking about things like menopause and showing us as sexy and getting sexier because we know ourselves better,” Scholey said. the independent.
She previously revealed that playing a multifaceted character like Nina really helped her career really “explode.”
She said Metro: ‘The Split was innovative when we started filming. Female characters were often two-dimensional.
“I’m delighted that people are now writing interesting material for older women and they’re getting better at it.”
But it wasn’t all fun and games. While filming the second season, Scholey was divorcing her husband of six years, Ciarán McMenamin.
Nine seconds into the Disney+ series Rivals, Scholey, 40, is seen wearing a perfect ’80s pastel pink skirt suit and red stilettos in the Concorde’s compact bathroom with the protagonist obsessed with the Rupert Campbell-Black sex.
Playing Nina was “groundbreaking” for Scholey, as the character showed her as “sexy and getting sexier” with age.
The Split focuses on the DeFoe family and those who work as divorce attorneys at their family firm. From left to right: Deborah Findley as Ruth DeFoe, Annabel Scholey as Nina, Nicola Walker as Hannah and Fiona Button as Rose.
The Split will return to the BBC on December 29 at 9pm as a two-part special in Barcelona. It is believed that this will be the last we will hear from the DeFoe family.
She admitted that it was overwhelming to be involved in a series about divorce law when she was going through hers, but said the cast supported her and helped her get through it.
The Split returns to the BBC on December 29 at 9pm as a two-part special set in Barcelona. It is believed that this will be the last we will hear from the DeFoe family.
While no more episodes of The Split are in the works, it was confirmed that Rivals would have a second season.
Scholey plays Fleet Street journalist Beattie Johnson, and although her cameo is brief, it sets the tone for the X-rated series that critics hailed as a “bonkbuster.”
In the opening moments of the first episode, Scholey is seen having a romantic relationship with a polo-loving lothario, played by Alex Hassell, in an airplane bathroom.
she told him Metro: ‘I’ve done a lot of those kinds of scenes, so I wasn’t nervous about that, but it was scary doing the first scene.
‘Alex was a gentleman. He had been filming for a while, so it wasn’t his first rodeo.’ he added.
There’s no doubt that the cast of Rivals is star-studded, with David Tennant and Danny Dyer in lead roles.
Although the northern actress had filmed intimate scenes before, she was nervous about filming the scene on the Concorde since it opened the entire series.
But Scholey is no stranger to performing opposite acting giants on stage and screen, having played Hernia opposite Dame Judi Dench in Midsummer’s Night Dream at The Rose Theater in Kingston in 2010.
Maintaining her Shakespearean streak, she played Lady Anne in a 2011 adaptation of Richard III opposite Kevin Spacey.
Although she originally auditioned to be Matt Smith’s companion, the actress was awarded the recurring role of Claire Brown alongside fellow northerner and Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker.
Most recently, she took on the role of Beth Fairchild in the 2023 series The Serial Killer’s Wife.
Scholer told YOU magazine that it was “scary” to play Beth because of the sexual nature of the character.
She said: “It was a scary part and I always think when you’re reading a script, if it scares you then you should probably do it.”
“It’s quite a physically challenging part, as there were some fight scenes and sex scenes, and because there was such a sexual side to it, I had to work a lot to prepare myself mentally.”
Scholey has made it clear that she wouldn’t have been able to land these jobs (raunchy or not) without the unwavering support of her parents.
Scholey pictured with ex-husband Ciaran McMenamin. The couple share a daughter named Marnie.
In 2018, she said cloth magazine that it was her father who suggested she consider drama school after spending her childhood dancing at home and attending dance classes.
He added, in an interview with The big problemthat her parents had worked ‘tirelessly’ to save money in case their daughter failed to get a scholarship, so they could afford to send her there and pay her tuition as a plan B.
‘I tried really hard to get into drama school and was rejected many times. It was devastating. “I knew what I wanted to do: I didn’t want to take a year off, I didn’t want to wait,” he said.
‘I tried really hard to get into drama school and was rejected many times. It was devastating. “I knew what I wanted to do: I didn’t want to take a year off, I didn’t want to wait,” he said.
When she first jumped into her acting career and was showered with role offers, Scholey joked that she said yes to everything she was offered because she couldn’t bear to turn down roles.
He can now be more demanding in his work and told the magazine that he looks for “difficult” parts.
As such, Scholey is currently in the Netherlands filming the second series of The Couple Next Door, Channel 4’s gripping suburban thriller.
The show’s first season was watched by over 1.1 million people and quickly became known for its raunchy scenes that left viewers horny.
Despite turning 41 on January 8, this isn’t the last time we’ll see Scholey’s sensual side.