Antonia Campbell Hughes has quietly become one of Ireland's most successful actresses. A former fashion designer, and permanent rocker, she moved to London a few years ago to pursue a career in film and television. After landing roles in a number of movies, her big break came when she secured the part of Sam Spleen in Jack Dee’s sitcom Lead Balloon.

Playing the sullen teenage daughter of Rick Spleen (Dee), Antonia showed a flair for comedy and enjoyed a number of memorable scenes with Rasmus Hardiker, who also excelled in his role as Sam’s slacker boyfriend, Ben.
Indeed, Antonia and Rasmus are currently writing their own series for Steve Coogan’s production company, Baby Cow, about an obsessive toy collector and a trainspotter who meet and fall in love. For good measure, she also has a part in Bright Star, the new film by acclaimed New Zealand director Jane Campion, whose previous credits include The Piano and In The Cut.
Away from her career, Antonia had a unique insight into one of the strangest rock 'n' roll sagas of recent years, thanks to her relationship with ex-boyfriend Drew McConnell, the bassist in Pete Doherty’s Babyshambles. Meeting her in a suite in the Morgan Hotel, Temple Bar, where she has just finished a photo shoot, it doesn’t take too long to discern the secret of her success.
Stunningly pretty, she also possesses a keen intelligence, and an engagingly humorous take on the more absurd aspects of the world of entertainment. In short, it would take one hell of a tough cookie not to be completely charmed by her.
I start by mentioning her role in Bright Star, which tells the story of famed poet John Keats’ love affair with his muse, Fanny Brawne. Antonia plays the part of Brawne’s maid and confidante, Abigail O’Donoghue, who eventually becomes pregnant by Keats’ best friend and fellow poet, Charles Armitage Brown.
On the first day of rehearsal, Antonia had an immediate insight into Jane Campion’s intriguing directorial methods.
“I turned up in casual clothing,” she recalls. “Jane was like, ‘What are you wearing?’ I went, ‘I don’t know, Prada or something'. Immediately, she whipped me out of it, and had me in a bonnet and a smock, to be in character for rehearsal. So we rehearsed, and when the cast had a lunch break, she had me serve everyone tea and so on, in the costume. I’m kind of going, ‘Okay, it’s not real, I’m an actor'.
“Anyway, there was this long table with Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider and Kerry Fox, people I really respect. They had me serving tea, and people had to call me by my character name. I’d love to make it into a short film, because Ben is a very lovely, sweet boy, so he was silently apologetic. Paul Schneider is this very Hollywood guy, so he was like, ‘This is fucking bullshit!’ Kerry Fox was loving it, she was going, ‘Abigail! More sugar!’
“It was about how to get me in the zone. Overall, I found working on the film to be amazing.”
Antonia had a hectic schedule at the time, as she was also filming the third series of Lead Balloon.
“I finished that rehearsal at four, and then had to go back to set to do Lead Balloon,” she explains. “When I was shooting both at the same time, I guess because I’m so comfortable on Lead Balloon now, I became quite arrogant. You know, going, ‘You people have no idea what a true performer goes through!’ (Laughs) A real obnoxious little bitch.”
Working on such a prestigious feature was a welcome development for Antonia, given her long-standing affection for European cinema and arthouse films.
“I grew up loving those kind of films,” she says. “That’s why I wanted to be an actress. Before that, we had the unmentionable fashion blip. When I was working in that field, I was always very inspired by artists, directors and films and so on. Then when I moved to London to abandon the whole fashion thing, one of the first jobs I got was Lead Balloon. I hadn’t grown up watching British television, and I didn’t know who Jack was, nothing. For some reason, it just is easy for me.
“I don’t find it inspiring, as such, but it’s a lovely, lovely job. The comedy world is such a big industry in the UK, and I think it’s better than doing normal television, because it does lend itself to film, and other material.”
The week after our interview, Antonia is due to join her Lead Balloon co-star Rasmus onset in Belfast (he is starring in a new film with Natalie Portman), to continue writing on their new series for Baby Cow. One of the pair’s stand-out moments in Lead Ballon was a song they performed together, written by Antonia and her then boyfriend, Drew McConnell. What did she make of the whole Babyshambles milieu?
“It was a funny thing, because I specifically never wanted to be involved,” replies Antonia. “The BBC were making a documentary and I wouldn’t sign the release form, because it’s just bad for my career, kind of. I remember the first day of filming for the pilot of Lead Balloon, the director found out that my boyfriend was in Babyshambles, and took me aside and said, ‘Are you a junkie, because if you are, we need to know right now'. There was that much of a strong connotation. But that was in the heyday of Peter being on the cover of every tabloid.
“I stayed very separate from it all. I mean, I trailed around on tour, I did all that fucking naff stuff, but it’s just not glamorous or nice at all. It’s very depressing.”
What was your opinion of Peter?
“The last time I met Peter was about a month ago, when he was doing Jonathan Ross with Drew. Drew and I are still friends. Peter now is quite nice. He’s a very sweet, lovely, charming fellow. On crack, he’s a nightmare. I have a lot of experience of him at his worst. Not fun at all.”
You were a part of one of those wild rock stories, like Guns n' Roses or something.
“I guess,” responds Antonia, a little uncomfortably. “It was very, very un-glamorous. Some of the stories that came out were shocking as hell, but they’re not even a patch on what was really going on. And I’m not going to divulge, but there was some dark stuff. I’m quite finickety, and being on a crack tourbus for months on end is not fun in my eyes.”
As it happens, Babyshambles are not Antonia’s only rock connection. A few years back, one Bryan Adams – who has a justifiable reputation as a superb high end photographer – asked if he could take some photos of her. However, she was deeply unhappy about the experience.
“I did a shoot with him, and he had loads of assistants. So there’s a room full of people, and he’s pretty much like, (does OTT Brit accent), ’Pop your top off love!’ Even though he has a Canadian accent, but in that old school ’70s way. I was wearing this dress, and he got me to spin. He was snapping away on a fast shutter, and he was like, ‘Don’t worry, I have photo approval'. We spent two weeks, back and forth, bonding on which shots we were going to use. Totally stitched me up and gave them a whole bunch of shots with my nips out.
“Of course, The Sunday Times went, ‘We can’t put that on the cover’. And I was like, ‘Why are you doing that to me anyway?’ But they ended up on the internet somehow, which I don’t want. So I had to contact him and go, ‘Get those fuckers off the internet!’ He was going, ‘It’s nothing to do with me’, and I’m like, ‘Of course it is!’”
Some of them, at least, are still out there. Her conclusion?
“With all due respect! I think he wouldn’t mind me saying he’s sleazy, probably,” she observes. “As a photographer, he is really into models like me getting their tits out. But he would be quite open about how he loves it, totally. He called me the other day, but I don’t hang out with him.”
Thankfully, Antonia has far more important things on her agenda. In addition to Bright Star, there will be a fourth series of Lead Balloon, and she has completed a series of comedy slots for MTV, in the guise of obsessive music fan Bluebell Welch. There is also the small matter of that series she’s writing with Mr. Hardiker.
“I think it’s going to be a huge success! Maybe, I don’t want to jinx it. In real life, Ras is a very esteemed toy collector, hence his obsession with Transformers and all that. So, he, Steve Coogan, and Steve’s partner, Henry Normal, came up with this character who is also a toy collector. And I’m a trainspotter. It’s about this boy and girl, and they’re both kind of misfits in society, and they meet. But it’s how they can compromise their obsessions, and they kind of fall in love.
“They said that TV is so full of stuff like Skins – which is all sex, drugs and rock n roll – and they wanted something to go back to basics, and make it quite ‘Will they?/Won’t they?’ So, it’s very lovely. It’s cute.”