She's a big deal in Hollywood - but Anna Friel's movie pals refuse to let her live down THAT lesbian kiss on Brookside 16 years ago.

As the Brit beauty filmed fantasy adventure Land Of The Lost her co-stars Will Ferrell and Danny McBride never tired of quizzing her about her controversial telly smooch.

Anna, 33, laughed: "Oh, they loved talking about my lesbian thing. They all love that.

"They were always like, 'She's a famous lesbian in England'. I would reply, 'Yeah, all right boys. Moving swiftly on'."

Anna's character Beth Jordache snogged neighbour Margaret Clemence, played by Nicola Stephenson, in Channel 4's Merseyside soap in 1993. The scene, screened before the 9pm watershed, stirred up a storm.

But Anna, mum to four-year-old Gracie, has come a long way since.

Land Of The Lost, in which she plays a Cambridge student who gets sucked through a space-time vortex into a magical world, promises to be a blockbuster when it is released in Britain on July 31. But her fans can catch Anna in BBC1's gritty drama The Street tomorrow night.

She plays single mum Dee Purnell, who becomes a vice girl to clear mortgage arrears and put her two sons into a good school.

Anna said: "It demonstrates what a woman will do to protect her children and I understand that. I prize my own daughter above everything else in the world."

Her down-to-earth attitude shows there's no danger of Anna forgetting her roots in Rochdale, Lancs, despite her Hollywood success.

Buzzing Basking in the LA sunshine, she told how she refused to indulge in faddy macrobiotic diets and yoga to prepare for Land Of The Lost even though her character Holly Cantrell spends a lot of time in skimpy shorts and a tank top.

Former lads' mag favourite Anna said: "I swear to God, I hate workouts. I can't bear them. But I had to get really fit."

She added cheekily: "I'll tell you how every girl should work out - I had possibly the biggest vibrator you've ever seen.

"It's called the power plate and has a handle and vibrates. You stand on it and it makes every muscle vibrate 40 times a second. So you only have to do 10 minutes a day and everything goes whoosh. It's remarkable.

"I had a little tent outside my trailer with it in. Everyone would walk past it and hear a buzzing sound then say, 'Anna's vibrating again'."

Anna, who has been acting since she was 13, has notched up impressive movie and TV credits without pushing the self-destruct button like so many other former child stars.

Her happy eight-year relationship with Gracie's father, Harry Potter actor David Thewlis, 46, helps keep her grounded.

Anna recalled: "The first time I met my guy he was putting his arms out looking like he needed a big hug - so I went in and hugged him.

"He came back to my house that night and we woke up to the house on fire. It made such a mess of the living room, we closed the door and went into the bedroom for the next three days. Two days later he moved in and he's never left in eight years."

The pair had first spoken two years earlier on a plane to Cannes. Anna greeted the Blackpool actor with the immortal line "Ay up, David". But romance only bloomed after both were single.

Proud mum Anna thinks Gracie is an actress in the making. She said: "She takes after me 100 per cent. She dresses up in a princess dress to eat her Weetabix. She comes to the set and thinks everything's wonderful.

"And she's a really wonderful dancer. Her favourite present was a twirling baton which she used in the car park of the Warner Brothers lot. She loved the old Nirvana hits when she was really young and we have a video of her rocking out and dancing. We should put it on YouTube."

The family split their time between Los Angeles and the UK. Anna starred in the US drama Pushing Daisies until it was dropped last year and is a key figure in LA's Brit Pack. She hangs out with The Flying Scotsman star Jonny Lee Miller, Sophia Miles from Moonlight and Lena Headey of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Anna confessed: "The first time I came to LA I was really nervous and scared of my roots disappearing, of becoming someone else. Now I really like it.

ever and our house is kind of a retreat for British actors.

"I do miss all my friends and family and my house in Windsor though. I get so excited when I go back and see the culture and Big Ben and tourist spots."

Anna is back in London in September to star in a West End production of Breakfast At Tiffany's as Holly Golightly, the role Audrey Hepburn took in the movie version.

She said: "It's my first stage role in seven years and I'm very excited."

Meanwhile LA life is not all parties and Rodeo Drive for down-to-earth Anna. She is still "as happy as a pig in muck" at a flea market and loves gardening and cooking. "I make a mean Irish stew thanks to my Irish heritage," she said.

Anna hopes Land Of The Lost, based on a hit 1970s American TV series, will be one of the summer's biggest movie hits with its gorilla men and computer generated dinosaur chases.

Anna's character was originally a 14-yearold American blonde - but producers made her a Cambridge student with a northern accent. "That's why I wanted to do it - to play a British person in my own accent," Anna laughed. "But I also always choose something that's going to terrify me a bit.

The idea of working with Will Ferrell, one of the best improvisers, was pretty scary."

But the Semi-Pro and Stepbrothers star soon put her at ease.

Anna said: "I can't say nice enough things about him. He's the 'respectful man. It's really hard not to fall in love with Will Ferrell." Danny McBride, star of Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder, was also great fun. Anna said: "He kept making British jokes. I was the butt of every joke and then he would talk about Brookside."

Anna aims to take as wide a variety of roles as possible to keep her career on the boil.

She said: "I want to be a character actress and not just a pretty face.That sounds really vain, like I'm calling myself a pretty face. I've got an all right face."

A bit more than all right according to your army of fans, Anna.