Sheridan has an uncommon talent

SHERIDAN Smith is best known as common-as-muck Janet in BBC Three sitcom Two Pints Of Lager, a role she has played for some seven years.

While most would hate to spend their lives in a dirty tracksuit, Sheridan doesn't mind a bit - as long as she makes people laugh.

It's rare for an actress to want to `ugly' themselves down in the name of art, but Sheridan says she takes inspiration from her heroine Kathy Burke.

"She's my idol," says the 26-year-old blonde. "I used to watch her when I was growing up on the Harry Enfield show as Waynetta Slob. The thing I love about her is that she doesn't care what she looks like as a character. She's not pouty and she really doesn't give a hoot what she wears, as long as it's funny.

"But she's also done some brilliant dramas and she can make you cry," she adds. "I'd like to follow in her footsteps, but I'd never be as good as her - she's a genius."

Sheridan's get-up in Two Pints could be compared to that of Waynetta Slob, but luckily in her current role she gets to glam up a bit more.

This week, she returns with Tamsin Greig and Montserrat Lombard for the second series of comedy drama Love soup, playing Cleo, a department store worker who is more worried about where the next notch on her bed post is coming from than selling perfume.

The first series of the show, which followed the lives of Alice (Greig) and Gil (Michael Landes), two people who led completely different lives but who were clearly perfect for each other, aired to much critical acclaim in 2005.

"We were thrilled - you never know how something is going to be taken," says Sheridan.

Although the second series has taken more than two years to come to the screen, Sheridan says she's glad it finally happened because she enjoyed filming the show so much the first time around.

Naughtiest

"We really do have all the fun you see on screen," she explains. "Tamsin was the naughtiest. We never managed to get through a scene without giggling. We got told off quite a few times, and the make-up artist used to go mad because we'd have tears streaming down our faces with laughter."

This new series sees a few changes to the original show. It's a longer run - 12 weeks - but the episodes have been cut from one hour to 30 minutes and focus more on the the three female characters.

"Cleo is very confident, vibrant, the tart-with-a-heart, and she's always egging Alice on to go out on dates," Sheridan explains. "Milly (Lombard) is the ditsy one, and Alice is more prudish and is shocked by things that Milly and Cleo come out with."

Sheridan insists that she doesn't have any qualms about playing such a flirtatious and promiscuous character, in fact, she says, she rather enjoys it.

"It's great for me as an actress - I get to work with all these different actors because Cleo never holds down a relationship for more than one episode, she's pretty wild.

"She's a modern woman who can do the chasing, oozing confidence, but with a heart."

The one thing Sheridan wasn't looking forward to was her first ever sex scene. Despite being a professional actress for nearly a decade, she's always managed to avoid that humiliating experience, until now.

"It was very nerve-wracking," she grimaces. "It's such a strange business, isn't it, where you can go, `Hello, I'm Sheridan', then someone shouts action and you rip each other's clothes off!

"The scene doesn't go too far. I had to whip my dress off and my underwear, but you don't see too much. It was still really embarrassing though. Luckily it's a comedy scene, it doesn't really go according to plan for poor Cleo. There's a shock!"

Her first bedroom scene seems to have opened the flood gates for intimate shoots, because just a few weeks later Sheridan was asked to disrobe again for an episode of Grownups, the other BBC Three comedy she stars in.

That was filmed in front of a live studio audience, but she says she didn't let that bother her. "I've got into my swing, I might ask for more sex scenes now I've broken the ice," she laughs. "More men please!"

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Sheridan attends Whats On Stage Awards

ridan attended Whats On Stage Awards at the Lyric Theatre, London on 24th February 2008. Pictured with James Corden.