DATE OF BIRTH : 27th August 1959
BORN : Tollcross, West Glasgow. She also bought a flat in Edinburgh with her actress friend Jennifer Black.
LIVES : Alexandra Palace, London
FAMILY : Both parents are deceased; her mother died of cancer when Siobhan was 23 and her father died of a heart attack when she was 29. Has two sisters, one of whom is called Graine.
TRAINED : As a child, Siobhan attended the Sunshine School of Dance in Glasgow, and went to drama classes with her sister. She gained an MA degree in English at St Andrews University in Fife. Siobhan also did a course in massage.
ON CHARACTER JANICE : ‘Janice is more idealistic than I am and more romantic. I couldn’t for the life of me do what she does for a living, I don’t think I have the emotional resilience to do what she does and remain as undamaged by it as she does. She’s done very well walking a line between being able to cope with the desperate sadness that she sees around her and not being swerved into a kind of cynicism.’
COULD SHE BE A DOCTOR IN REAL LIFE? : ‘Absolutely not. I have completely no scientific ability whatsoever. I really do think that doctors have to have a rare combination of those kinds of skills and people skills. I think it’s a very tall order and I’m the world’s most impatient person so I don’t think I’d be very good.’
WHO WOULD PLAY HER IN A MOVIE OF HER LIFE : ‘Probably the only person who’s be willing to do it is me! It’s much more likely to be a benefit show at the King’s Head than a movie, frankly.’
MOST VIVID CHILDHOOD MEMORY : ‘How tiny my sister was when she was born. She’s nearly five years younger than me and my mother was in hospital for a long time with her. When I first saw her apparently I said ‘It took you a long time to born that wee thing!’ because she was absolutely weeny, about 2lb or something. But she’s been running my life ever since!’
MOST FOOLISH THING DONE : ‘I was filming with Paul Bettany in Camogli in Italy one December. We came out of a restaurant on the penultimate night right on the harbour and Paul said, ‘Let’s walk across the boats to get to the other side.’ There was an iron ladder down the harbour wall and he raced off along the boats, but I got to the first one and thought ‘This is a really terrible idea, I can’t do this.’ I leant back to get to the ladder, and the classic sitcom thing happened – the boat moved away from the wall and I went into the water in my Cerruti coat. Paul hauled me out, ruining his Paul Smith suit in the process. But I could really easily have been killed.’
WHO SHE ADMIRES : ‘In my profession I think Dandy Nicholls and Kathy Burke, for their great wit and lightness of touch. In real life, all women who manage to have a career and children. I don’t know how they do it.’
WHAT MAKES HER ANGRY : ‘Almost anything – I’ve got a really terrible temper!’
HEALTH ADVICE SHE IGNORES : ‘All of it frankly. Most of the time I work in the theatre where it’s quite usual to be having your first meal of the day at one o’clock in the morning, and in my case the effort involved in making sure it’s something healthier than a bagel and three Wispa mint bars is just too much to be bothered with now. I did try and live healthily and time has never hung so heavily on my hands!’
FAVE FOOD : Fish pie
MUSIC LIKES : Cecilia Bartoli
WHO MAKES HER LAUGH : ‘Laughing is one of my favourite things and I’m very easily entertained. I’m very deeply in love with James Gandolfi from The Sopranos. The entire cast of The Sopranos make me laugh and cry.’
PREVIOUS CASUALTY APPEARANCE : Siobhan has appeared in CASUALTY. In S6 E12, she played Betty Jones. [More Info]
TELEVISION CREDITS : Alfresco; Taggart; Bulman; Turn on to T-Bag; Casting Off; Look Back in Anger; Casualty; Between the Lines; The High Life; A Relative Stranger; Sorry About Last Night; Throwaways; Deacon Brodie; Wokenwell; In the Red; Every Woman Knows a Secret; Holby City; Sea of Souls; The Smoking Room; Shoebox Zoo (voice); The Afternoon Play – The Trouble with George; The Catherine Tate Show; New Tricks; Midsomer Murders; Eastenders; Nina and the Neurons; The Bill; Boy Meets Girl; Taggart; Benidorm
FILM CREDITS : Half Moon Street; Duet for One; Captives; Frankenstein; Nervous Energy; Karmic Mothers; Beautiful People; Ed Stone Is Dead
THEATRE CREDITS : Much Ado About Nothing; The Spanish Tragedy; Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Perfect Days; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; The Trick is to Keep Breathing; A Relative Stranger; Dido Queen of Carthage; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Mary Stuart; The Lunatic Queen; U.S. and Them;As You Like It; The Comedy of Errors; Twelfth Night ;An Experienced Woman Gives Advice; Sex Comedies; King Lear; Look Back in Anger; Carmen; Shadowing the Conqueror; The Big Picture; Goldilocks; A Month of Sundays; Macbeth; Don Juan the Lover; The House of Bernarda Alba;
RADIO CREDITS : McLevy; Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off; Penny Gaffs; Angel Places
AGENT : Conway Van Gelder Ltd, 3rd Floor, 8-12 Broadwick Street, London W1F 8HW
DID YOU KNOW?
* Siobhan had a prolapsed disc during Series 3 filming, ‘I spent a lot of time bent over like the leaning tower of Pisa. I carried on working here because it was possible – it must be the only show in the world you can do with a slipped disc! They could lean me up against a bed and hope people would think it was the person in the bed who couldn’t move when infact it was me! I was appalled by it – I couldn’t even put my trousers on. I’m terrible at being ill.’
* Siobhan has little holes in the front of her ears. ‘My sister says there should be a bolt through them!’.
