It seems strange then that, given she was genuinely worried about revealing all, and there was a biting cold wind, she turned up sans blouse and bra. When asked about the incident, a veteran Hollywood producer smiles: ‘I don’t buy it, I’m afraid. Little Ms Friel is being a rather clever cookie. She’s not going out there flaunting it. But she’s manipulating the press and is obviously taking the advice of her team. She’s playing the game beautifully. She’s showing flesh and getting attention. On stage, it’s in the name of art. And at the premiere for the Star Wars movie, probably one of the biggest nights of the showbiz year, it was an accident. Of course it was, dear.’

To pin down Anna Friel is difficult nowadays — about her career, her love life, or even her clothes. Take the story behind her casting in the Broadway run of the sexually explicit play Closer at the beginning of this year. Despite the fact that she had acted on stage in Britain — in Harold Pinter’s Look, Europe! at London’s Almeida Theatre in 1997 — and had, it’s been reported, already unsuccessfully auditioned for the original London run of Closer, her theatre work was conveniently ignored when she was introduced to American audiences. Instead, she was presented as a newcomer who had never performed live before.

‘It was another carefully plotted move to attract maximum attention,’ admits a source close to 23-year-old Friel. ‘Anna’s a very accomplished actress. [Closer] is a trendy, high-profile play. She was starring alongside established names, though her talents shone through. But it was better that the critics didn’t know she had experience. Let’s face it, it’s much more romantic for a new comer to steal the scene.’

It is, of course, much easier to reinvent yourself when you are thousands of miles from home but Anna, the Rochdale girl turned Hollywood starlet, is still close to her family. Her parents regularly send her ‘Red Cross’ parcels filled with Tetley tea bags, Lyon’s golden syrup and Marmite, and only recently, when she learned of her grandfather’s death, she immediately flew her grand mother over to New York.

But, like a number of other British actresses who have enjoyed limited success in Britain — such as Liz Hurley — she has found America the perfect place to create a new image. For Friel this means ditching her image as an ex-soap star whose love life is followed by the gossip columnists and whose scantily clad picture appears in lad magazines.

The young Anna wasn’t exactly averse to peeling off for the camera. While playing Beth Jordache in the Channel 4 soap Brookside and still only 19, she did a shoot for the lad magazine Loaded, dressed in sexy Cabaret-style stockings, top hat and heels. She subsequently took her clothes off for Sky magazine (1995 and 1997), and posed in her cardie and knickers for GQ (1998).

But since her much-publicised move to America last November, and her New York debut on stage in Closer, there seems to be a certain reluctance on the actress’s part to acknowledge these pictures. ‘I looked at some of those things afterwards,’ she says, ‘and thought, "Oh my God, how did they convince me to do that?" I stopped doing all those bikini things at the same time I cut my hair off.’

Which isn’t strictly true. When she appeared on the cover of GQ magazine in April last year, wearing bikini bottoms and a cropped top (midriff exposed; boobs pushed up as much as they could be), her hair was undeniably shorter than before. Since then she has also posed for some saucy shots to promote her latest movie, Mad Cows.

When Night&Day asked permission to publish the 1997 Sky magazine photos, we were told in no uncertain terms by Anna’s agency that they would not be happy for us to run them, or ‘resurrect’ them, as they put it — an unfortunate choice of words, given that Anna is standing naked behind a crucifix.

One photographer who worked with Friel on a shoot is not entirely convinced by her new-found naivety. ‘She was definitely ambitious and it really came across... She was very much an actress and quite a starlet, too. She put on an act of being in control but, at the same time, I got the impression she was a bit of an airhead. Still, she was very good in front of the camera.’

America has given Friel a clean slate. ‘No one knew me in America when I came here,’ she says. ‘No one had heard of Brookside and no one had heard about my love life. I didn’t come here with any baggage and that’s what has been nice. They take me at face value. I’m only as good as my performance because no one prejudges me.’

She once complained that the British media ‘turned my private life into a soap’. Her first relationship to come under the spotlight was with the television and stage star, Darren Day, in 1994. They made something of an incongruous couple — she, increasingly cool and trendy, counting the likes of Kate Moss, Noel Gallagher and his wife Meg Mathews as her mates; he, the self-proclaimed fan of Cliff Richard and one-time host of TV show You Bet. Teenage magazines kept sniping that Anna should ditch Darren for the crime of being too cheesy for his own good, though, to her credit, she defended him. ‘He will never be considered cred and he knows that,’ she said. ‘What do I do? Go out with some one who’s doing drugs all the time?’

In fact, their relationship seemed very happy. Day was not Friel’s first boyfriend — she had had an affair at 16 with a photographer called Matthew from whom, significantly, she split to concentrate on her career. She and Day slept together the night they first met, she said, and ‘it was really good’. Indeed, despite her current sensitivity to talking about her private life, she has, in the past, shown a direct attitude to sex and once famously remarked: ‘You don’t always want it all intense and heavy, sometimes you just want to have a really good time and Day has said that he has a very high sex drive and recently admitted to having had ‘10 or 11 Aids tests’. (He passed.)

In April 1997, two-and-a-half years into their relationship, Anna and Darren split up. Within a matter of days, he was parading the new love of his life, Coronation Street actress Tracy Shaw. It was a blow for Anna, not least because Day saw fit to talk about his new relation ship in the Sun— ‘I feel like I’ve been hit by a ton of bricks,’ being one of his more eloquent offerings. Subsequently, he was at pains to point out that he hadn’t two-timed Anna with Tracy, but admitted: ‘When I hit 28, I started questioning my relationship with Anna. She was only 21 and we were at different stages of our lives and careers. I was thinking I would quite like the security of marriage, but she wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.’

Day’s mother, Anne Thorpe, put it even more bluntly: ‘She is very ambitious and wants to go as far as she can in her acting career. I think she wants to be like Jane Seymour or Stephanie Beacham and make it in America in something like a big costume drama. She said she was not going to give up her career to be with Darren and their relationship was just standing still.’ Romantic balm for Anna came along in the form of singer Robbie Williams. It was, by all accounts, a fun entanglement and a welcome respite from the heartbreak she must have been feeling after her split from Day. But that liaison ended when Williams was spotted in a taxi, accompanied by a blonde with a seahorse tattoo on her breast.

Since then, Friel has seemed to steer clear of relationships, or has managed to keep them very quiet. She admitted recently that she is desperate for a man: ‘I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, it’s driving me mad.’ She also denies the rumours that she is gay, which inevitably started when she played the lesbian Beth Jordache in Brookside, and resurfaced more recently when she was spotted kissing Kate Moss in London’s Groucho Club.

‘There are always rumours about me and Kate,’ she said. ‘But you either have that instinct or you don’t, and I don’t. I mean, I’ve had loads of women come on to me here... it’s very flattering.., but I’m definitely a man’s woman.’

The libidinous Jack Nicholson might be pleased to hear this as, when he saw her, he was heard to comment that, ‘Until I sleep with her, I just can’t concentrate.’ But although American actors are obviously taken by her charms — Al Pacino is also said to be an admirer — Friel has tended to hang out with other fashionable British actors in New York, such as Rupert Graves, Toby Stephens, Judi Dench, Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson. She is frequently photographed at glamorous parties.

This exposure, however, is being carefully controlled.

Her American publicist, John Barlow of the agency CAA, the man behind Nicole Kidman’s much-hyped ‘theatrical Viagra’ stage performance in The Blue Room, admits frankly: ‘I sat down with Anna and we decided she was simply over-exposed in Britain. We chose to carefully select what press she would do in America for maximum impact.’

As Anna herself has said, ‘Here, it’s all about etiquette. It’s lacing your words carefully and keeping everything nice, kind of hidden behind a smile. My secret is to hope for the best, expect the worst.’

As soon as Anna arrived in Los Angeles last November, the well-oiled Hollywood ‘star-making’ machine swung into action. ‘For the first few days when Anna arrived, she seemed to really enjoy being unrecognised,’ said a paparazzo on her case. ‘She just went for coffee, met up with agents and movie types for lunch at trendy restaurants, and seemed to blossom. But she got into the Hollywood way of life very quickly. Within a week she was going to the gym.’

According to one CAA source, her entree into Hollywood high society began last December at the ‘Fire and Ice Ball’ which is ranked second only to the Oscars as a place to see and be seen. Anna was seated in a £1,500 seat at the top CAA table — in full view of the assembled glitterati. She had been given a free £5,000 Versace gown and loaned £3,500 of De Beers diamonds. She giggled as she admitted: ‘No one has a clue who I am.’ But she wowed the crowd as the new girl in town. Designer Donatella Versace found her ‘delightful and charming’, and declared, ‘She’s an incredibly stylish woman who is very aware of what suits her.’ Anna has since been offered free Versace clothes for any event around the world.

She soon found herself the hottest ticket in-town, but was initially baffled by the Hollywood pursuit of perfection. ‘I got a spot,’ she said, ‘and they sent me to a dermatologist who injected it with cortisone and he said: "So th~y’re not casting perfect actresses any more?"

She was also ‘horrified’ by comments about her natural teeth: ‘They say: "Is it in the water? Everyone in England has bad teeth?" At first I got really angry. They think we don’t take care of ourselves — but we take care of our real selves.’ Maybe, but apparently she has now spent $1,400 on getting her teeth fixed.

A ‘massive hit’ for her, according to one source close to her team, was when Vanity Fair magazine agreed to feature her on the cover of its April 1999 ‘Hollywood’s Hottest’ issue. A Vanity Fair spokesman said: ‘Anna Friel has an enormous talent and a very bright future ahead of her. We like to be first to spot a rising new star.’

From then on, the Friel Factor was assured. Shoe designer Jimmy Choo became a personal friend. His managing director Tamara Yeardeye raved: ‘Anna has a young and fresh spirit and her style fits on the right side of sexy.’

But before Vanity Fair had even hit the news-stands —again, in a carefully planned manoeuvre. — Friel headed for the bright lights of Broadway. She turned up in New York in January to begin rehearsals for Closer, Patrick Marber’s highly praised play about obsession and lust. Amazingly, she managed to beat veteran Hollywood ingenue Winona Ryder for the role. Friel wore Chanel to the opening night and won the adoration of the critics above her established co-stars, Natasha Richardson and Rupert Graves.

Friel admitted that she was scared when she hit Broadway, but took some comfort in the fact that other Brit actors, including Judi Dench, were already there. Indeed, she wasted no time in telling the press how they all met up after shows and how Dench would call on her in her dressing room ‘and give me little notes’. Friel revealed a natural talent for name-dropping. When Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman visited her backstage to rave about her performance, she told an interviewer: ‘To be that famous and so nice.’

She will next be seen in British cinemas later this month, in Mad Cows, based on the Kathy Lette book, in which she plays an Australian single mother. She is also due to start filming an American romantic comedy, Boys and Girls, next month.

On top of all this, she is reported to be having meetings with Miramax film boss Harvey Weinstein — the ‘genius’ behind Gwyneth Paltrow and who also has a development deal with Liz Hurley — and director Joel ‘Batman’ Schumacher is said to have offered her the lead in ‘a major project’.

Her career, according to one CAA insider, is ‘progressing nicely and at the right speed. We don’t want to push it too fast. She’s still a young kid. She has plenty of time to grow and develop as a performer. No one wants to push her too hard.’

During the run of Closer, which closed in August, she spent her free time boating on Central Park’s main lake and visiting a bar, Swing 46, near the theatre. The bar’s owner, John Ahktar, confirmed that she was a regular. ‘The stars love it here because they can swing away in obscurity,’ he says.

Friel herself has said that fame scares her. ‘I honestly don’t know if I want to go through here what I went through in England. But I also don’t know if I want to be a humble actor who just hides away’

But, according to an expert on the New York theatre scene,- ‘Anna’s very down-to-earth. She hasn’t really been changed by success; the only difference is that it’s much harder to get close to her these days. She seems to be constantly surrounded by groups of people. They are the ones who make it difficult to get through to her.’

A case in point involved a recent photo shoot for the London listings magazine, Time Out. The photographer and reporter, who flew out to New York especially for an audience with Anna, were dismayed when her minders suddenly declared that she was ‘unwell’ — and the shoot was called off.

‘The Time Out crew had flown a long way, at great expense to see Anna,’ said one source. ‘The to-ing and fro-ing from her people had the photographer tearing his hair out. Right up until the last minute, everything was up in the air. But when Anna finally did turn up, she was sweetness itself. It’s typical of what Hollywood types do to these kids. One minute they’re nobodies, the next they’re The Talent.’

Then again, Friel has never really been in the ‘nobody’ category. From a young age, she showed star potential and it didn’t take long for her to be noticed. By the time she was at comprehensive school in Rochdale, she had already been ‘spotted’ by her drama teacher, Mr Rawlings, who suggested she go to the nearby Oldham Theatre Workshop. While there, she displayed the drive and determination to succeed that virtually everyone who comes into contact with her comments on.

Initially, however, she did harbour dreams of becoming a barrister. Sensible girl that she was, she studied hard for her nine GCSEs. But all the while she was making minor appearances in shows such as Emmerdale, Coronation Street and Medics. When she was just 15, Anna landed the part of Michael Palm’s daughter in Alan Bleasdale’s television drama, GBH, and could be seen on set studying furiously for her exams.

After GBH, Anna, not letting the acting go to her head, took herself off to sixth-form college. Then, aged 16, came her big stroke of luck. The producers of Brook-. side were looking to cast a character called Beth Jordache — a nubile, vulnerable teenager who had been sexually abused by her father and would be ripe for future sensational storylines.

‘The part of Beth Jordache was a very important one,’ says Brookside’s producer and creator, Phil Redmond, ‘and we were looking for something magical in the actress who played it. With Anna, we saw that something straight away. Leaving aside her looks, she seemed to possess a vulnerability coupled with a strong core of steel — almost a kind of part woman, part girl.’ She caused a sensation with the soap’s infamous ‘lesbian kiss’ scene, but left the series in 1995 amid protestations that the manner of her departure was a touch ridiculous — her character was killed off when she died in custody of a heart attack.

She then worked steadily in television but finally secured her first film role in 1996, in Stephen Poliakoff’s The Tribe, with Joely Richardson and Jeremy Northam.

The film itself was, by common consent, not good —the most spectacular aspect of it being Anna’s nubile nudity in the movie and the aforementioned photo shoot, taken during its production, which involved Anna standing naked, hair streaming, her modesty. covered only by a large wooden cross.

There is no doubt that these glamour shoots got people’s attention. ‘Doing those kind of shoots has been the way for young actresses to get noticed for as long as movies have been made,’ says Phil Redmond. ‘It’s impossible to say whether Anna would have become quite as successful as quickly as she has if she hadn’t done those shoots, but it all depends on being in the right place at the right time.’

Her career continued to tick over nicely. Her personal life, however, did not. In 1997, she was filming Land Girls, a movie set during the wartime Forties, when she heard that Darren Day had split up with her. She had also just learnt that she had landed the lead role in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend. She coped with her heartache the only way she knew how by throwing herself into her work.

The Anna Friel Show continued to gather momentum. She went to Ireland to film a period romp for the BBC, All for Love, with Richard E Grant and Miranda~ Richardson, appeared on stage in London in Pinter’s Look, Europe!, and went off to Singapore to film Nick Leeson’s story, Rogue Trader, with the very hunky (and very married) Ewan McGregor. Although the two were pictured sharing a kiss off-screen, both were keen to dismiss the notion of a romance as sheer gossip. ‘He and Anna are just good friends,’ his publicist said.

From Darren Day onwards, men do seem to have caused her problems. Dating has also been far from straightforward in America. ‘American men are wonderful upfront. But you go out, you have a lovely time, you’re asked a lot of questions and. you don’t know if the guy’s ever going to call again. I’m having a great time going out but no, there’s no one special at the moment.

‘It’s not the sex, it’s the hugs I miss the most. Just having someone to hold you tight is lovely. I’d love to be in love, but I don’t really have time for a relationship at the moment. There are other things going on in my life that I’m concentrating on.’ Polishing her image is undoubtedly one of them. ‘In LA, when I first got there and people asked, "What do you do?", I found myself answering, "I’m a student", because I couldn’t be bothered getting into that thing of:

"Oh, you’re an actress."