14-07-2025
The Couple Next Door star Annabel Scholey reveals what she really thinks about intimacy co-ordinators - and why she's now getting so many sexy roles in her 40s
Hit show Rivals, the rollicking TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper's bonkbuster novel, opened with a supersonic bang last year when champagne corks popped as journalist Beattie Johnson and lothario Rupert Campbell-Black joined the mile-high club as Concorde reached the speed of sound.
Filming the scene was rather less glamorous, reveals actress Annabel Scholey, best known for legal drama The Split, who starred as Beattie opposite Alex Hassell's Rupert.
'Joining the mile-high club was fun and Alex is absolutely gorgeous, such a gentleman, but it wasn't exactly sexy,' she recalls.
While some of the flight scenes were filmed on a real Concorde at Bristol's Aviation Museum, a special set had to be built for the naughty moments. 'They had to build a bigger toilet because the actual Concorde's was so small it could barely fit one person in, and this had to fit me, Alex and the director of photography. He was sitting on the loo while we went at it.'
She admits she still gets a little nervous before sex scenes and couldn't eat breakfast before filming that one. 'But once you've rehearsed it, done it to the camera a few times, you're kind of bored; two hours doing the same moves and the same sounds!'
Rivals fans will be pleased to learn that we'll be seeing a lot more of Beattie in the upcoming second series after she reappeared in the final episode of the first when it was announced she would be hosting a gossip show for Lord (Tony) Baddingham's TV company – which was going up against his foe Rupert's bid for a TV franchise.
'I've got a really nice storyline in series two,' she says. 'Beattie is bad, and I like playing bad – it's much more fun. So there's a lot more to come from her. It's been so good to be back; everyone in that cast is brilliant and everyone loves each other.
'Normally I do shows that involve a fair bit of weeping so it's nice to do some comedy. Once I'd got over the shock of seeing my sex scene, I watched series one as a punter and I loved it. It was a risk because the story was of its time and there was a lot of sexism, but because it was period they've done it very tongue in cheek. I think it came out at exactly the right time and people were ready for the satire. I'm absolutely thrilled I'm getting to wear my mullet wig again.'
Wakefield-born Annabel, 41, is one of those slow-burn actresses who suddenly seems to be in everything. Playing naughty, desperate-for-attention middle sister Nina in The Split first put her on the TV landscape; she's also recently starred as Ann-Marie Blake, the niece who catches a murderer in acclaimed true-crime drama The Sixth Commandment, and took a leading role in BAFTA-winning Welsh film Chuck Chuck Baby. We'll be seeing a lot more of her in the coming months thanks not only to Rivals and Prime Video thriller Apollo Has Fallen, but also to the second series of Channel 4's sexy psychological drama The Couple Next Door.
'For a long time I was frustrated not to be doing anything substantial on TV – I was in the theatre for ten years before I did much at all,' she says. 'But it makes sense to me that this is my path, this is my moment.'
In the first series of The Couple Next Door, Eleanor Tomlinson's Evie and her husband Pete moved next door to Danny and Becka, before a night of passion between Evie and Danny had disastrous consequences.
But you don't need to have seen that to watch the second, which tells a new tale. Annabel plays renowned heart surgeon Charlotte Roberts who's happily married to consultant anaesthetist Jacob (Sam Palladio). They seem to have a perfect life with busy careers, a large house, nice cars and a loving sex life. But then a red-headed bombshell moves in next door. And patients suddenly start dying…
Aggy K Adams stars as the mysterious new neighbour, Mia, a nurse who works at the same hospital. She's feisty, outspoken, refuses to obey the hospital hierarchy – and is stunningly beautiful. Soon both Charlotte and Jacob find their worlds being turned upside down by her before Charlotte's millionaire celebrity doctor ex-boyfriend Leo (Sendhil Ramamurthy) re-enters her world.
'The great thing about turning 40 is that I find myself suddenly playing biochemists and heart surgeons, which is hilarious,' says Annabel, who's been acting since she was 13.
'One of the things I love most about my job is getting to experience different worlds, and to play Charlotte I went into an open-heart surgery theatre, which was mind-blowing. When I had to do it myself, the heart surgeon I'd been following was in there too, pretending to be learning from me.
'And what I also love about playing women of this age like Charlotte is that she's come to this point in her life where's she's thinking, 'What's next?' She's having a bit of a mid-life crisis. She's achieved everything she wants and then she goes on this journey which sees her unravel.
'As a 40-something woman, that's interesting. You've got to that age where you're confident, you know who you are, what you won't put up with any more. But then you suddenly think, 'What am I supposed to do now?' I can feel it myself – I've worked really hard since I left drama school and I feel like I'm not getting really great roles, but I keep thinking, 'What could be next?'
'The other thing about being in your 40s is when you look in the mirror you aren't necessarily at your peak any more, you start to see signs of ageing, and I love that Charlotte goes on a journey of sexual rediscovery. She's hidden that side of herself,her femininity, because she's atop surgeon in quite a masculine world and she's married to someone she's known since she was a student. She becomes awakened physically and mentally, which is really interesting.'
As on almost all shows with sexual content now, Annabel worked with an intimacy co-ordinator. She admits she's still getting used to it. 'I've done a lot of sex scenes in my career – I'm often cast in 'sexy' roles and I think because I used to dance for a long time, I'm quite comfortable in my body and the choreographing of these things. I've spoken to other actresses of my own age group and this intimacy co-ordinator thing has been a tricky transition for some of us because we were on our own for so long. But I feel like I'm really starting to get used to it, and actually it makes me feel sad we never had this before. There have been some tricky moments in the past.'
Annabel divorced her first husband, actor Ciaran McMenamin, two years ago and they share daughter Marnie, who is six. She has since got married again, to pilot Jim Trayhurn, and says life is now a little easier for actors who are mothers. The Couple Next Door, although set in Leeds, was filmed mainly in Antwerp but Annabel was allowed every other Friday off so she could fly home and be with Marnie for the weekend.
'I think they're now much keener to help actors see their children, and that makes all the difference,' she says. 'My mummy guilt is always sky high but I also firmly believe that I want to show her that it's good to follow your passion. I do get the question, 'Do you love your job more than me, Mummy?' And I say, 'Absolutely not. I don't love anything more than you but I do love my job and it's OK to do both.' I want to show her that it's OK and hopefully by the time she's grown up it will be better still.
'When I was filming The Sixth Commandment I was going through my divorce and it was very tough but they looked after me, got me an apartment and I felt taken care of. I think things are shifting in a good way for mums who are working – which is good as I don't feel like men feel the guilt that we do. It's one of the best things about Rivals as I don't live too far from where it's being filmed in the West Country so I'm working from home, which is fantastic.'
Marnie hasn't seen much of Annabel's work – although she's obsessed with a 2014 musical she starred in called Walking On Sunshine – and she knows there will come a day when someone will make a comment about some of her sexier roles.
'She's very cool, not judgmental; she's an adventurer and will be a woman of the world. But also, I'm sure she'll find me deeply embarrassing. She already does at times. But I'd like to think she will think, most of all, 'Mum, you followed your dream and you made a success of it' and that will override anything else.'
