Former Brookside girl-next-door Gillian Kearney has cast off her nice image with her new roles as nasty, oversexed Sue in Shameless and head case Hedda Gabler.

Any idea that Liverpool-born actress Gillian Kearney, who started out as a teenager in C4's soap Brookside, was destined to play that type of girl forever, has been well and truly dispelled by her current stint in Shameless.

This bawdy, rowdy, outrageous look at life among a Manchester working class family has well and truly changed her image.

As Sue, new girlfriend of Tourette's sufferer Marty, she is - to quote Kearney herself - "nasty and oversexed". Rather than pay rent, she claimed not to be living in the house but sneaked back to spend passionate nights with Marty.

Sue arrived on the scene towards the end of the last series and Kearney was asked back for all eight episodes of the new run of the award-winning C4 show.

She found no problem fitting into an ensemble cast who'd become a close-knit team over previous series. "I know Jack Deam, who plays Marty, anyway. It's just like a real family. My favourite scenes are the ones all together in the house," she says.

"The stories shift focus each week. You have one big episode, which is a story about your character, and the rest of the time it's ensemble work. And it's nice to play someone who's not completely nice girl next door."

Her role as June in the ITV remake of The Forsyte Saga provided a handy transitional stage from good to bad. "She was a bit of both - she was quite spoiled and became a sympathetic character because of what happened to her," says Kearney.

"I've already played a murderess in Blue Murder and Murder In Mind, but I've not had the chance to do anything as light as Shameless before. We were getting scripts at the last minute and things like that, but that's exciting and has its own energy."

Only one thing made her pause amid all the Shameless sex and swearing. "I thought, 'my father's going to see this, what's he going to say?'," she says.

She doesn't relay his reaction but isn't about to let the good times roll again. She's still being bad in her latest role. Shortly before completing five months filming on Shameless, she signed to play one of Ibsen's great female stage roles, Hedda Gabler, in a production at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.

Hedda is a bit of a head case, newly-returned from her honeymoon and bored out of her mind. She occupies herself manipulating the lives of her relatives and friends. "I was pleasantly surprised to be offered the part, and didn't hesitate because it's such a wonderful role to play," says Kearney.

She studied scenes from the play at drama school, so it's not totally new to her. She's finding it fun. "There are moments when she's completely irresponsible. She doesn't have any conscience, although her actions are fuelled by real pain rather than being like that for the sake of it," she says.

"I don't want to play her as completely cold. She has to be a human being."

Debbie, the schoolgirl she played in Brookside, was sensible - until she and boyfriend Damon Grant ran off to York and their own spin-off series. It ended tragically when he was stabbed to death by the river.

Kearney had been spotted by a Brookside casting director acting with a youth theatre in Liverpool. "I used to love acting and wanted to be in school plays, but never thought of it as a profession," she says.

Debbie was only supposed to be in a few episodes but the character proved popular enough to extend her stay.

She combined acting and studying for A-levels for two years, including playing the young Shirley Valentine in the film of the play, before going to drama school at 20.

Towards the end of her studies there she was cast as the lead in a Catherine Cookson TV adaptation, The Tide Of Life, being made in the North-East. "I met her and you feel very privileged to meet someone like that. The character was described in the book as blonde and tall for her age, which I'm not. I thought she was going to hate me. But she looked at me and said, 'you are like her'."

Quite what Cookson would have made of her latest role as Shameless Sue is unclear. Kearney herself is sure of one thing, "I don't think I'm ever going to play a nice girl again."

* Shameless continues on C4 on Tuesday at 10pm.

* Hedda Gabler runs at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, from February 17 to March 11. Tickets 0113-213 7700.

Published: 28/01/2006