(blue-question, white-answer)

Callan and Lara Interview !!!

So when you first read in the script that your characters were going to snog did you secretly think, "Oh, yes"?

LARA: "No, when we started he had this skinhead and an attitude and he scared me stupid! I also had a boyfriend from back home so I wasn't thinking in those terms, but I did think he was cute."

CAL : "Yeah, I did. But it was really weird because my heart was saying 'go for it', but my mind was saying 'you can't get into anything'. So a lot of the time I was doing anything to get away from those feelings and Lara as well. So sometimes the on-screen was cool and sometimes it was just to intense"

What was your first screen kiss like?

CAL : "It was so hard because you were doing something so intimate in front of 30 or 40 people, and it's very difficult to open yourself up in those conditions. The first one was on a closed set so that helped a little. It gets easier."

LARA: "Well we were a screen couple long before we went out in real life, and things just got kind of developed. It's weird because we were so on and off for the first year of filming. I had the boyfriend and we thought working together and going out would just be too much. But trying to ignore our feelings for eachother was almost impossible, so at the beggining of '97 we decided to go for it, because it wasn't going to go away!"

CAL : "It was on and off throughout the first year of filming. One day I was thinkin' 'yes' and the next 'no', so it was tough deeling with those feelings. But we decided to confront it and it's been great."

How does kissing on set differ now it's with someone you like in real life?

LARA: "It's a lot easier, I mean we just turn it on, but a screen kiss is still a screen kiss even with Cal. It's so not personal because there's a crew and you have to do it to order, time after time, so it kind of takes all the passion out of it."

CAL : "It's better, a hole lot better. And I think the show benefits as well because people can tell when actors have feelings for eachother, it really comes through on the screen. It has a real magic. I mean it must be tough doing a love scene with someone you don't get on with."

Is there a danger of bringing stuff from your outside relationship into your on-screen one, and vice versa?

LARA: "Well the threat is allways there, but you just have to be professional about it. This is our job after all and you just have to be there completely for the shot. That's not to say it wouldn't hurt to do a love scene after a huge argument, but you just have to switch those feelings off and go for it."

CAL : "We don't really argue as it happens, we allways tend to just fall about laughing rather than get into anything. But sometimes it's quite good to bring things like that on to the set because you can use it to feed the emotional scenes you are doing."

So you wouldn't eat tons of garlic before a kissing scene if you anoyed eachother?

LARA: " Ha, ha, ha!!! I haven't done that, but I'll remember it for the future!"

CAL : " Ha, ha, ha!!! No, I'd never use a scene like that!"

Everyone says you can't work with someone and go out together as well. What do you think of that?

CAL : "It's a question of what two people involved are feeling. I mean we sometimes spend 24 hours together and it's perfectly fine. It comes down to what's in your heart, and if it's in your heart, then it's the right thing for you to do, and being with Lara is in my heart."

How does Anita's and Drazic's relationship differ from Lara's and Cal's?

CAL : "Anita and Drazic love eachother very dearly, but because of his family background he finds it difficult to trust anyone and be truly open. Which is totaly opposite to the way I feel about Lara."

Have you ever had something happen in the show that then spookily happened in real life?

LARA: "Ah, yeah, in the first year when we were kind of on and off a lot, everything that was happening to Draz and Anita was excactly what we were feeling and going through off screen. We just thought someone was getting in out heads and writing it down in our script! It was too weird."

CAL : "Yeah, excactly what Lara said. That really freeked me out."

If Drazic and Anita split up and the script had anyone one of you go off and snog someone else, how would you feel?

LARA: "Actually he's had to do it in front of me and it's so weird and unnatural, because you are seeing the person you love, kissing someone else. But it's not a jealousy thing it's just a difficult feeling, but in the end it comes down to trust and I trust him completelly."

CAL: "I probably wouldn't hang around. It just would be really difficult to watch. But it's part of our job and you have to live with it. It's the weirdest situation because in no other walk of life would you see your partner kissing someone else and it's not meant to be a problem."

A couple of photos of Cal and Lara together