Shameless S07E11

Lots of Shameless characters do their level best to live up to the title - and none more so than Karen, the sarcastic, saucy, lollipop-sucking Lolita of the sink council estate, whose growing pains have been punctuated by one shameless fling after another. Since the first series, the teen temptress followed in the footsteps of her nymphomaniac mother Sheila by sleeping her way around the council estate and even seducing her then boyfriend's dad, Frank Gallagher. But away from the infamous Jockey pub where she pulls pints for Frank and his chavtastic family, actress Rebecca Atkinson couldn't be more unlike her on-screen character if she tried.

For a start, Rebecca is actually four years older than her Chatsworth estate alter ego and is not to be confused with her creation, although people do - especially lads congregating around her while on location in Manchester. "Sometimes the general public, especially young boys, don't see the difference between myself and the character and they can be a little bit boisterous," she said. "They might heckle you a bit when you're in the street and things like that but it's part and parcel of the job. And once you talk to them they go 'Oh! You're quite different!' But that initial reaction can be a bit embarrassing at times."

It's hardly surprising that playing Karen provokes a reaction, yet those early sex scenes were a toe-curling torture for the young actress in her first major role since training as a dancer and landing small roles in Life On Mars, Heartbeat and Holby City. It is testament to her talent that Rebecca made it all look horribly convincing. Her biggest challenge was the scene where Frank innocently walks in on her as she lounges in the bath. He mumbles his apologies and tries to retreat, while brazen Karen flashes her boobs, coolly asks him to pass the towel and makes fun of his confusion. But this was fiction - the reality was very different.

"That was really quite difficult," she admits. "I had nothing on my top half and you just feel so vulnerable. It's just so embarrassing, with everybody being around you. It's overwhelming at first when the camera's on you and the crew are all around because Shameless was my first experience of doing anything like that. All the way through that scene I was so nervy and worried like mad about who was looking at me and what they were thinking of me.

"But David Threlfall, who plays Frank, is such a good teacher he did everything he could to put me at ease. And the producers make sure that when I'm doing anything in the nude we work on a closed set, and the crew all looked at the monitor and not me. Now it's much easier and I just get on with it. I've learned to switch into Karen's character, drop the dressing gown and do the scene, grab the gown as soon as it's over and become myself again. Karen being Karen makes it easier for me to play those scenes. She's got more front than Blackpool, so I probably hide behind the character a lot of the time."


Television Series: Shameless (S07E11)
Release Date: March 2010
Actress: Rebecca Atkinson
Video Clip Credit: Trailblazer



http://rapidshare.com/files/370261136/Rebecca_Atkinson_Shameless_TB.mpg