After being the latest celebrity mum ravaged by the press for losing weight "too quickly" for giving birth, Anna Friel reveals what she really did to get her boy back, and why...

As I ring the doorbell to Anna Friel's suite , I'm prepared for the familiar celebrity-interview scenario to unfold; PR person answers door, escorts me into the room while strictly informing me what I can and can't ask ( I expect this particularly in the light of the recent furore in the press about Anna's seemingly swift shedding of her baby weight). PR then tells me the stories are a load of baloney and constantly interrupts while I try to conduct the interview.

However, Anna's not that kind of girl. She doesn't have a bullish publicist or a large ego and there is no PR in tow for this round of interviews, for her latest movie Goal!. Instead, she answers the door herself with a baby in her arms and welcomes me in.

"I'm so sorry, I'm running late," she apologises effusively in her lilting Rochdale accent. "But I'm finding it so much harder to concentrate since having my baby - and there's so much going on". In the past 19 months Anna has shot three movies, Niagara Motel, Irish Jam and Goal! and she was pregnant during the last two. On July 9th (three days before her own 29th birthday) she had a baby girl, Gracie Ellen Mary Friel.

"Here, would you like a cuddle?", she says with a big smile, handing over Gracie. I Can't decide if she's more of a dead-ringer for Anna or her partner of five years, the acclaimed British actor David Thewlis, 42, (who plays Professor Remus Lupin in the next Harry Potter film). As Gracie gurgles in my arms, Anna dashes about the suite, organising last-minute preparations for the premiere of Goal! receiving deliveries of flowers from film company executives and ordering dim sum from room service, because she says, "I haven't had a chance to grab a bite to eat".

Finally, she collapses on the sofa and I reluctantly hand Gracie back. "The past few months have been crazy for me and David", she says. "We spent two weeks in France with my parents when Gracie was four weeks old. Then we went to stay for a week in Scotland at Billy Connolly's place, which we do every year for the Highland Games. Then we went to Ireland for a week to visit relatives. Now David's away doing a play in America with Meryl Streep. And in three weeks I start filming Goal! 2".

Dressed in a black pencil skirt, flat, patent-leather pumps and a black and white striped top, Anna looks a picture of health - you would barely believe that Gracie was born just nine weeks earlier. There has been huge media interest in how quickly Anna regained her slender shape. While some weekly glossies have hailed her post-baby look as a stylish triumph, other publications, like The Independent, slammed her double-quick body transformation, with her being labelled a "poor role model". Unsurprisingly Anna found the criticism devastating.

"I supposedly lost weight too quickly because I was about to start filming nude scenes", she says. "That really upset me. I'm getting fit for work, because I have to start a new film. Not for naked scenes. And also, I made sure I looked after myself when I was pregnant because it's the best thing for the baby. I was and still am the healthiest I've ever been. I stopped smoking and drinking, started eating really healthily and took up gentle exercise. I did yoga until I was about five months, then it got painful, so I stopped and just walked a lot instead. I gained two and a half stone, but I'm basically one of those lucky people who only puts weight on their stomach when they're pregnant. And look", she adds, lifting her top and poking a soft stomach, which , yes ladies, I can vouch, really isn't pancake flat. "I've still got a baby belly. I just dress very well to hide it".

While the press reports would have us believe she'd strapped herself into something called a "vacunaut" (a space-age wetsuit that sucks your skin while you are running on a treadmill), Anna points out that it takes nine months to make a baby and nine months for your body to get back to normal, and that she is not getting back into shape in a rush. Clearly agitated, she carries on, "For the first six weeks after giving birth I couldn't even walk, let alone exercise, as I'd had an episiotomy, which was so painful. It's only in the last couple of weeks that I've been able to do anything. I'm doing my pelvic floor exercises every day and I walk a lot with Gracie in the buggy. I work out three times a week doing core stomach exercises on a big gym ball and I'm also still breast-feeding Gracie, which helps. Plus, I have to run up four flights of stairs at home in Windsor".

The public criticism stings more when you consider that in the past Anna has suffered badly with endometriosis and had a burst ovarian cyst, both of which resulted in doctors warning she might not fall pregnant easily. "I couldn't believe it when I did", she says. "We'd only just stopped using contraception and after all my health problems, I really thought I wouldn't be able to get pregnant, so Gracie is like a little miracle. That's why it's extremely upsetting to be made to look like I'm not putting my baby first, that I'm treating her like an accessory".

As well as the body issues, Anna's life has of course changed dramatically since having Gracie. Although she's proud to be "someone who cares about keeping my feet on the ground. I don't have 10 nannies and a dozen houses", with David in America, she's hired an au pair to lend a hand. "Nothing prepares you for parenthood", she says. "I don't know how anybody can do it on their own - I take my hat off to single parents".

To cope with the separation, Anna and David speak every day via a video camera. "I miss him so much and I know he misses us", she says. "Babies change so much every day when they're little, so the camera is a life-saver. It means David sees Gracie every day, making being apart a little easier to bear".

The birth , at London's exclusive Portland Hospital, lasted 18 hours. "It was so painful", she recalls. "Nobody tells you about the sting when you start pushing. I couldn't believe the pain. David said I looked like I was being tortured !".

"I'd watched birthing programmes relentlessly, but you never get a real idea of what it's going to be like. It feels like you're being ripped open. We had a few dramas and David got a bit scared at one stage. They had to use a ventouse to get the baby out, so the doctor was between my legs pulling with all his might. There was a sloshing sound and he fell back with his face covered with blood. David went white as a sheet - he actually thought the doctor had pulled the baby's head off!"

We're midway through the birth scene when the doorbell rings and a workman arrives to change the light bulbs. As he busies himself, Anna reveals concerns about having a stranger in the room. "I get a bit paranoid when I don't know people", she whispers. "We've had the paparazzi parked outside our house for the past few weeks and they even followed us all the way to The Dorchester Hotel. The lengths people will go to overhear conversations is unbelievable".

Her comments may seem paranoid, but when you reflect on the tabloid interest that has been a part of her life since the Beth Jordache in Brookside days, through the relationships with Darren Day and Robbie Williams and the time in the 1990'2 spent partying with Kate Moss, Sadie Frost, Meg Mathews and the Primrose Hill set, it's hardly surprising. Does she find reflecting on that period in her life strange ?

"I'm glad I had that fun in my early twenties because now I'm a mum and I need to be responsible, " she says. "Because of Brookside I worked through my teens and could never go out, so I made up for it when I started socialising. But it's been blown out of proportion. I keep thinking to myself, 'Was I really a cool party chick?'. The groups I went out with then were my friends. I wasn't in a relationship and life is very different when you're single. I wasn't going to sit indoors on my own".

Anna's friendship with Kate and Sadie seemed to have stopped abruptly, leading to suggestions that they had fallen out. But Anna insists that isn't the case. "When I moved to New York for a year", she explains (to star in Broadway hit, Closer), "my priorities and responsibilities changed. There were no arguments, I just lost touch with a lot of people in London. When I came back from New York, things were different and the tabloids were full of stories about drink, drugs and partying."

"I didn't want to be guilty by association. I just thought 'I don't know if I want to do that any more', so I stopped. I grew up and started to focus on my career more. I thought I'd better do something about my reputation. Acting isn't just about the work, it's the whole package and I love my job so much, I don't want to ruin it by having a reputation. I haven't seem them for years, but I have spoken to Meg on the phone recently and we're hoping to meet up soon".

And testament to her hard work is Anna's career. In Goal! she plays the female lead in the first of a trilogy about a Mexican-American footballer who fulfils his dream of playing for Newcastle United. Newcomer Kuno becker is the Latin football hunk who falls for local nurse Roz, played by Anna. Together with Newcastle United footballers, her co-stars include England manager Sven Goran Erikson and players David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane.

"I'm looking forward to starting Goal! 2 which is set at Real Madrid," she says. "It will be the first work I've done in ages without being pregnant, as I worked until I was 25 weeks. The only way I could hide my bump was to wear huge, tight Bridget Jones knickers". And with that , her dim sum arrives and she tucks in.

Yes, these days Anna's priorities are simply Gracie, David, family and career. As Billy Connolly recently told her. "You've grown into a great young woman now that you're not hanging around with fools any longer".

Goal! 2 will be in cinemas next year