Sweet Lorraine

"Oh, there you are!" proclaims Lorraine Keane with her customary effusiveness as she sashays across the lobby of TV3's Dublin base. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting but everything's gone wrong today. Look! Even my boots are broken!"

True enough, the Keane footwear is indeed being held together by the judicious use of a safety pin. It's a hard life . . .

Since she began working for AA Roadwatch at the age of 19, Lorraine Keane has been almost omnipresent on the airwaves. Her first substantial television exposure came courtesy of RTE's business programme Start Me Up, which she co-presented while still working for Roadwatch. From there, she went on to feature on RPM, Drive and Live at Three.

When TV3 was launched last year, she threw in her lot with the new station and has worked as their entertainment correspondent (a job she professes to "absolutely love") ever since.

It has not all been plain sailing, however. For a start, she has come to be represented as the archetypal D4 Woman (slightly ironic, since she has lived the vast majority of her life in Rathfarnham), with many a column-inch devoted to mocking her accent. On a more acute personal level, certain journalists reacted to rumours of the end of her engagement with undisguised glee.

Talking in TV3's boardroom, Keane is immediately engaging — talkative, quick to laugh and with a willingness to mock herself while being unremittingly positive about others. Your correspondent may be a tad biased here, however, as Lorraine offered both sympathy and coffee to assist in the recovery process from a music industry bash the previous night. Lorraine had been there, stayed for half an hour and (true to her sense of professionalism) left to get an early night. This journalist (true to the spirit of Hot Press) didn't.

NIALL STANAGE: Was there anything in particular that made you want to work in the entertainment industry?

LORRAINE KEANE: Well, my dad, you see, has been in a showband all his life. And I think that maybe that was part of it. And my mother always loved musicals and brought me up on Calamity Jane and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. She made me think that the real world is actually like that, which (laughs) is extremely sad. We won't go into that. There was always a lot of music in the family. We were all made to go to piano lessons, and I had my voice trained from a very young age. But then my dad always said that in the music industry you end up travelling an awful lot, which is a nightmare, and working at the most social times, you know. So that didn't tempt me too much. So the media really was the most tempting option out of the three.

You got your first TV experience in RTE. How did you find it there?

Fabulous. Absolutely brilliant. I found everybody I worked with very helpful.

And then did TV3 come to you?

Yeah. I was promoted in Roadwatch, last June or July, and I was enjoying it. But I kind of. . . I didn't have the enthusiasm that I used to have even three years previously. RTE were talking about another full-time thing, and then TV3 came on board, and, you know, it never rains 'til it pours — although that kind of bad weather I wouldn't mind too often. I just needed a new challenge for myself.

In this job have you had to interview anyone who you would have been in awe of as a fan?

Once you get comfortable in it, it makes you realise that really they're just people. Like I know why people look at big celebrities in awe of them. But when you meet them it makes you realise that they are not what you would have expected them to be. They're usually very nice, very genuine, down-to-earth and very normal. Jon Voight was just amazing. He's just gorgeous, so lovely. I was dying to meet him, 'cos I'd watched The Champ a million times. The first band I ever interviewed, and this is before we went on air, kind of a practice run for me, was The Bee Gees . . . and I was a nervous wreck. So I stood there with my little microphone and my cameraman behind me, absolutely in bits, but I stopped them and they chatted away for about seven or eight minutes, which was great.

Do you still suffer from nervousness?

No. I mean, I'm not complacent. I would be anxious to get it right, but not nervous.

Is it hard to constantly conjure up all this "this is fantastic" enthusiasm?

Sometimes, I just want to get in and out. If you enjoy it to a great extent, well, then you will stay around, but during the week I don't tend to stay late at anything. You just can't. With Roadwatch, it was gas. I used to have to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning, but at least it was radio, so if I had a hangover, or if I fell into bed at 1 o'clock in the morning, and had to get up four hours later, at least you could go into Roadwatch — and many's a morning I almost did go in in my pyjamas. Throw on a tracksuit and just sit there, and nobody would have a clue. If anything you'd sound a bit rough, but sure, that only sounds sexier anyway! (laughs) Demi Moore eat your heart out!

What are your talents?

Oh God. Ask TV3. They gave me the job (smiles). I dunno.

You must have some idea.

I don't! I know that I've no problem talking, I'm a good communicator, which is obviously very important. I remember in school in about third or fourth year, I used to talk so much that my maths teacher gagged me with my school scarf. I got on great with her, but she actually got so pissed off correcting me constantly that she just gagged me. I met her about a year ago on the street — Miss Hayes — and she stopped me and goes "Lorraine Keane! I can't believe it! Now you're being paid to talk!" And I went "Excellent!" I hadn't thought about it like that before.

Do you have any broadcasters whose style you particularly like?

I like Barry Norman. Otherwise, Gay Byrne. I just think he's fantastic, the ultimate professional. But that's why he's as popular as he is. I was on The Late Late Show the January before last and I was quite nervous. And the man came down to me and spoke to me for about ten minutes, and I was the calmest individual. He's just got this presence about him.

OK, a hugely important question: which is more important to people's lives, roundabouts or showbusiness?

(Laughter) I think, unfortunately, anything to do with traffic, therefore roundabouts. Showbiz is fun. It's light entertainment. I traded in roundabouts for showbusiness! I think it was a pretty good trade.

More seriously — are you a feminist?

I would say that, yes, I am a feminist, but at the same time, I suppose, typical woman (laughs), I want the best of everything. I still want a man to offer me a seat in the pub, and to open the door and let me go before them. So yes, I would still expect a man to be a gentleman, but I think being a feminist doesn't mean trying to be a man, and unfortunately some feminists take that issue too far, because they think they have to be men. They don't. They should be feminine and just be equal. So for me feminism is all about being a woman, being treated like a lady, but being equal and having the same opportunities.

But don't you think that there's an element of sexism to some of the criticisms that have been made of you?

No, because for the very, very little criticism that I have received so far — touch wood — Jesus, now that I've said it, that's it! I've been very lucky. There have been a couple, but those can come just as easily from females as males, so I don't think so.

But what about all the references to your looks or to Gráinne (Seoige's) looks?

Well, I think terms like "Babe" and "TV Babe" and all that kind of thing . . . they're just overused really, aren't they? At the end of the day, I know I'm an intelligent woman, and if somebody finds me presentable, or finds my appearance acceptable or nice in anyway, then that's only a bonus, isn't it?

Yeah, but TV's a visual medium . . .

Of course, and if you're presentable looking then it's a bonus — but it's nothing I did. My parents gave me that, so why should I be too concerned about it? I know I'm intelligent. I don't need a journalist or an article or whatever to try and convince me of that when I'm already pretty secure in myself.

How do you feel about being criticised for the accent?

That was Nuala Ó Faoláin. She wrote a piece in The Irish Times. I think she's a fabulous writer, but she had written this piece and the title — I will never forget it — was "The Privileged New Elite Give Birth To A Placeless Accent". It was all about DARTish-speak and D4 and "Point of Hoineken" and all this kind of stuff. And she singled me out as one of the people. From that, then they all just sort of jumped on the bandwagon. Like you, I think a lot of people have much snobbier accents than mine. I never had elocution lessons. My parents are Dubs, I lived in Rathfarnham all my life. I'm now on the DART (laughs). It's taken me 27 years to get there.

Have any of the things that have been written or said been hurtful to you on a personal level?

Only recently have some journalists become very personal and that is very hurtful. The way I see it is, I'm not into idle gossip, or vicious rumours. I think unfortunately in this country there are so many of them going around, about lots of people. It all boils down to the old Irish begrudgery: if they see anybody doing too well, or as they see it having the "perfect life", which basically doesn't exist, they are too bloody quick in this country to try to take the legs from under them or knock them down a peg or two. I just don't think it's nice. I'm in the entertainment business, and I could go the gossip line, and I could be the diarist, I could do that — what's going on, who's with who and whatever. But the reason I don't do it is that I'm not interested in anybody else's business. I don't like it when other people are interested in my personal business. So therefore I'm not going to be a hypocrite.

Are you talking specifically about stories about your relationship?

Yeah, just my personal life, yeah.

The counter argument that's always offered up is that people are fair game if they place themselves in the public eye. For example, I was under the impression that yourself and your boyfriend did a magazine story about your life together . . .

No, no. Wayne was never into publicity or any of that kind of thing at all. But that was his prerogative and it suited me fine. I didn't pressurise him into doing anything because he's not in the business, and couldn't care less about it, basically. And even when we got engaged, a newspaper contacted me and asked me could they take a photograph of myself and Wayne and I said no, because I knew Wayne wouldn't. And they asked then if they could take a photograph of me and I got my photograph taken without the ring. They wanted the ring in the shot and I said no, because that's gross.

So why do you do a photograph like that at all?

I do it because you have to in this business. I mean, that's what increased my profile from reading traffic. It was one person writing something, and then I suppose the accent thing, and then people just realise you exist. I'm not naive or stupid enough to think that that didn't help. Of course it does and I was quite happy with all of it.

I think people should understand that I'm doing my job, because I absolutely adore my job. But it's only a job. It looks seriously glamorous and it's just not. It's genuinely not, even interviewing Will Smith or Jon Voight or All Saints or whoever.

To some people that would have to be glamorous.

When you go off to do press junkets to London or Amsterdam or wherever, you have ten minutes with the person. You're basically herded in like cattle. They couldn't care less about you or any other pain-in-the-arse journalist, that's going to annoy them and ask them the same questions. Yes, it's great to meet all these people, but it's not as glamorous as people think it is.

Have you found any of the people you've interviewed particularly objectionable?

No.

Ah, come on now . . .

Honestly, not once. I had one interviewee who gave me one-word to five-word answers. Now he was extremely polite, an absolute gentleman, but he was nervous or didn't like doing interviews. Lovely person, but gave me a serious challenge, because I was like "Oh, my God".

You can name names, you know. Who was that?

It was Dennis Quaid. Very, very nice man. Maybe he was just browned off. He just gave his five-word answer and that's it.

Moving on to music — we did a questionnaire with you a while ago and you said that your favourite musician was your dad . . .

Oh, God, I'm extremely sad. (laughter)

No, it was very loyal of you.

Extremely sad. God bless him. He still is (my favourite).

So what band is he in?

The Indians (smiles).

Your dad's in The Indians?

Yeah, did you not know? In fact, the day I was born, they changed their name from The Casino to The Indians and that's when they started making money and doing well. So he calls me his little charm (smiles). So that's it — my father wears make-up for a living (laughter), but I've come to terms with it. It's alright once you can stand up and say it, you're halfway to being cured.

Who do you listen to for your own enjoyment?

My taste is so varied. I have a new CD player in my car which I just love. I'll tell you what I have in it at the moment. I have . . . Abba Gold, I have Picturehouse, I have The Prayer Boat (long pause). I had Elliott Smith, I took him out.

You don't like Elliott Smith?

I do, I do, but I think I probably have to listen to it a bit more. I only got the CD a couple of weeks ago. Let me see, what else do I have . . . oh (embarrassed whisper) Lovesongs. See, I shouldn't be telling you this (laughs).

What's your favourite love song?

What's my favourite one? . . . God, I'll be thinking of this later now and I'll be raging 'cos it'll come to me. A few suggestions?

I dunno. Van Morrison has written some great love songs.

Em,. . . No . . . I like Van Morrison but I don't think his love songs are lovey-dovey enough (laughs).

Er, right. So we want something with kind of string sections and stuff . . .

Yeah, yeah, really, really pathetic. Ha! Ha!

Like "I Will Always Love You" type category?

Yeah! That kind of thing is what you're talking about. What are the other two CDs I have out there . . . The Indians isn't there funnily enough. Oh. Blur 13 — I have that.

Do you smoke or drink?

I smoke, I drink. (smiles).

What are you like when you're drunk?

I talk even more (laughs). Imagine! One thing you don't want to do is meet me when I'm drunk! And I always dance too much, and I'm extremely sad, because I dance like I'm back in the '80s! So the other thing you never want to do when you meet me, if I'm drunk, is ask me to dance! Ha! Ha! Or join me on the dancefloor. But I only social smoke by the way. And it's not because I'm a good girl or I try and be good or anything, I just don't really think about cigarettes during the day, and I don't smoke at home. The only time I really enjoy smoking is when I'm drinking.

Do you smoke hash at all?

(Pause followed by laughter) Turn off that bloody tape!

Have any of the people you've interviewed ever come on to you?

(Long pause. Even longer laughter) You're such a louser! I hate your questions! (pause) Pass! (more giggling followed by silence.) Ah, go away, I'm not answering that question! I don't know . . . well . . . Can we skip over that one? I'll tell you off the record.

Yeah, certainly . . .

OK.

(Sorry folks, journalistic ethics being what they are, a certain American actor must remain nameless. Lorraine Keane did not take him up on his offer).

OK, a question you can answer on the record. What are your plans?

Kind of whatever falls into place. I have to dedicate all my time to doing what I'm doing and it is very demanding. We are starting up so, you know, you have to have patience and in a start-up situation you are going to be under-resourced. We've reached our target audience and more, which is great. There's still a long way to go but we are still over-target. I'm really happy doing what I'm doing. The atmosphere is brilliant. For me that's important. I see lots of areas that I could develop into . . . maybe my own chat show, that kind of thing.

Lorraine Keane Live!

Yeah (laughs).

When you're not working what do you spend your time doing?

At the moment there is very little time not working. I've worked now the last 14 days in a row. But I really don't mind. I mean, on my weekends I'd only work three to four hours each day. I just feel very lucky that I enjoy what I do so much. In my spare time, I like to go out with my friends and have a bit of craic. That's as in craic agus ceol, by the way. None of that funny stuff! (laughs).