Sometime model, lad mag favourite and mocked presenter of The Big Breakfast - Kelly Brook has fitted a lot into her 25 years. And that's not to mention her Hollywood boyfriend or her big screen lead in School For Seduction, reports Steve Pratt.

MODEL-turned-actress Kelly Brook enlisted the help of Newcastle taxi drivers to help prepare for her first leading role on the big screen.

In the comedy School For Seduction, she has to adopt Italian and Geordie accents, so learning to do them properly was vital for the 25-year-old lads mag pin-up.

"I had a voice coach to teach me the Italian accent," she says. "I mastered that first, watching lots of old Italian movies with Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani. I've always been a fan of those and to emulate them was like a dream come true.

"I left the Geordie accent until I arrived in Newcastle for filming. You're riding around in taxis in the town centre and just hear the drivers speaking. I'd talk to them and get them to tell me about their lives. I just picked up the accent from listening to people."

She modelled her accent on the film's writer-director Sue Heel, who comes from Newcastle and has what's been called a "posh Geordie" accent. Being around local people on the film set was an asset too.

"The girls in the cast were really helpful and if I slipped up they'd say, 'No, like this'," she adds.

Brook was back in the city, with American actor boyfriend Billy Zane, for this week's premiere of the movie. She and Zane, who was one of the stars of Titanic, met earlier this year on the set of the US thriller Three.

In School For Seduction, she plays an Italian temptress who teaches the art of seduction, so it's not unreasonable to inquire how Zane seduced her. "He didn't have to," she says. "He's very charming, intelligent and extremely good-looking, so didn't have to try very hard at all. I suppose I had to seduce him."

Further details are not forthcoming. "That's for me to know," she says. As for marriage, she's tight-lipped about that too. "I don't know, you ask him. We will see," she says.

Brook faced media attention before when she quit C4's The Big Breakfast amid tabloid claims that she was about to be fired for being too dumb. She'd moved into presenting after starting modelling at 16 and become a regular, in various states of undress, on the pages of glossy men's magazines. As she also studied dance, drama and singing at Italia Conte Stage School, an acting career wasn't a surprise.

The furore that surrounded her departure from The Big Breakfast helped her play Sophia in School For Seduction, who leaves Italy to start a new life elsewhere. Brook took herself off to America until all the fuss died down.

That ability to pick herself up and start all over again was something that Heel saw in Brook and made her think she was perfect casting for Sophia.

"She's gorgeous, yes, but more relevant than that is her strength," says Heel.

"She took some real stick during her stint on The Big Breakfast. They put her down and effectively bullied her simply because she was young and inexperienced. But she bounced back and showed them all that they were wrong. She made something of herself and shocked the lot of them. I thought she'd draw on that and bring it to the character - and she did, very effectively."

Brook herself takes much the same line, admitting to feeling the pressure of her first leading screen role. "It was the first thing I was going to do in this country and that people were going to see since The Big Breakfast. So I was really nervous," she says.

"I'd wanted to come back to England for so long to do something and it had to be something good. It was exciting, nerve-racking, but a dream come true. It was the best of everything.

"When I read the script, this character was very much about a girl who had been beaten down a lot, and needed to move on and start afresh. I just thought of my professional experience in England, of having to go away and start afresh in a new life. I completely related to that in the character."

She certainly had a good time in Newcastle making the movie with Margi Clarke, Dervla Kirwan, Emily Woof and local girl Jessica Johnson, who won a talent search for a role in the picture.

She admits they had a few "sneaky nights on the town".

"It was funny in the mornings when we were in the make-up trailer. Everyone was smoking and talking about the night before. It was like girls getting ready to go on a night out. We didn't feel we were making a movie, so it was great."

It was her first visit to the city. "I was so impressed by the architecture and museums. I just thought 'Wow'. The nightlife is incredible and I was so shocked that everyone goes out without a coat, because it's so freezing," she says.

She's happy with how the film turned out, feeling that the hardest things were the Geordie accent and having to spend so much time in hair and make-up as Sophia had to look immaculate at all times.

As for what tips she picked up about seduction, she's not saying. "I think the film is all about being confident in yourself. As long as you feel good, it comes from that."

Despite her time in the US, she says that England is still home. "I go to LA to work out of necessity, but I love coming home," she says.

Updated: 09:24 Friday, December 03, 2004