Eight million Monarch addicts will tune in tonight for the start of a new series of the BBC show, eager to surrender once more to its beguiling confection of heathery glens, surly ghillies and winsome Caledonian lasses. But to the dismay of diehard fans, this series will include the departure from Glenbogle of its leading lady, “Sexy Lexie”.
Steele’s character ticked all the boxes for a heroine of Sunday-evening television drama — pretty, gallus, flighty, flirty and possessing the obligatory heart of gold. The story of the housekeeper who married the laird was like Cinderella with midges. It was pap, but quality pap.
Exported by the BBC all over the world, the show has now become a franchise. It survived last year’s departure of Archie, the handsome young laird played by Alistair Mackenzie, and will survive the loss of Lexie as well. The challenge facing Steele is whether she can shake off the Monarch tag and make her own way as an actress.
We meet in the afternoon at a trendy Glasgow club and when she walks in I have to do a double take. She is an extreme example of the truism that celebrities in the flesh are smaller than you imagine. On television, Steele looks 5ft 9in and is physically — in the nicest possible way — a woman of substance. In person she is tiny and thin, a girlish 5ft 3in, like a pocket-sized mini-me version of the real thing. She is used to this reaction, ruefully and wrongly concluding it must mean she looks big and fat on screen.
In fact, the camera loves her. So much so that there are some in the entertainment business who believe that with a fair wind and a couple of breaks, Steele could become a Scottish Catherine Zeta-Jones. After all, CZJ used to be the glamour interest in another wholesome Sunday-night drama series, The Darling Buds of May.
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Mention the comparison to Steele and she just laughs. “Oh am I? That would be great. But I’m a very different actress to her. I’m Scottish. I’m small. I would love to be a film star, but I’m definitely not what they’re looking for.”
Why not? “I’m just not!” she insists. “She’s a stereotypical beauty. I’m not. And that’s fine. It doesn’t bother me. They say they want all different kinds of people, but I hear of all these actors who go over to America and as soon as they start making it they’re told to get their teeth fixed. You can see it in some actresses, the differences from when they started out.”
Unlike the fruity brogue employed by Lexie, Steele’s natural accent is flatter and more urban, with that nasal drawl popular among central belt twentysomethings. Her eyes are dark and her demeanour girlie — she will be 29 in December but looks and acts 21.
Although it is mid-afternoon, she is not long awake. Last night she was working until the small hours on the set of the BBC drama series Sea of Souls. It is a kind of Scottish X-Files, that was first screened last year to a less than enthusiastic reaction, and has now been recast for the second series, with Steele joining Bill Paterson and Iain Robertson as a trio of paranormal sleuths.
The leaving of Monarch came, she admits, as something of a relief. She had been in danger of coasting as an actress.
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“Lexie was a pretty easy character to play,” she says. “The show is very well cast in that we are all very like our characters, and had been right from the start. I notice it now, on other jobs, realising I do have to work a bit harder. I was just so comfortable in that character and used to it.”
She finds it hard to identify the moment on Monarch when, after five series, she had finally had enough. “There were times when it was really difficult, when midges were really bad and the weather was at its worst and you were standing in a wee skirt at the top of a hill. That’s what you had to contend with — not the acting.” But she also felt that Lexie’s character had run its course.
“There wasn’t much more they could do with her, especially after Alistair left. He was Lexie’s man from day one. If he had stayed on I’m sure they could have made more of it — there could have been children and all that.” After taking on a stage role in the revival of John Byrne’s Cuttin’ a Rug, which she did “to frighten myself”, the decision was made. “I wanted to say, ‘Look, I can do other things’.”
She knows Sea of Souls could be the bridge she needs. Her character is Justine McManus, a new member of Clyde University’s para-psychological research unit. “It’s a bit more grown-up and understated while Monarch is slightly fairytale-like and over the top. But this new part is real life in a way Monarch just wasn’t.” Sure, up to a point, if real life involves tangling with poltergeists and other psychic phenomena.
The new character is “a single mum, quite level-headed, very normal”, says Steele. “She’s so different to Lexie. At the start it was very hard not to say the lines as you would say them as Lexie. I’ve got to sit back on it a bit. It’s not about big reactions and fiery temperament. And no flirtiness, or knowingness, or this . . .” She does a knock-em-dead smouldering pose over one shoulder, complete with fluttered eyelashes. “Because that’s generally the characters I get to play all the time, funnily enough.”
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She knows precisely why. I ask if she has come to terms with being a sex symbol. Immediately, she slaps the idea down. “I would never think that. It’s just not me,” she says firmly. But it is the case though, is it not? “Well, so they say. But I’m still single, so obviously not. I don’t even get recognised very much.”
Not exactly true, as she later concedes. On a recent visit to Edinburgh she says she was recognised every 10 minutes or so, and has been stopped in the street in Australia. She gets fan mail from places as diverse as America, Iceland and India. But she persists with her just-a-wee-girl-from-Milton-of-Campsie routine, which is not entirely convincing.
As for being single, she recently slipped from No 1 to No 2 in a list of Scotland’s most eligible women. How did that happen? “I don’t know.” she wails. “I’m obviously less eligible. I’ve been thinking about that and I’m obviously just going to go down and down, so I might just get myself taken out of it.”
Earlier this year Steele moved to London to stay in a flat with friends in Notting Hill. There will be more of a social life, now that she is not spending seven months of the year in the Highlands. There may even be time for a boyfriend.
“In this business in general, it’s quite hard to have a relationship. Just now I’m living out of a suitcase. But I wouldn’t say I’ve missed out because of Monarch, as it was such a huge part of my life. I grew up on that show. I had a fantastic time. And I’m not ready to settle down yet, so it hasn’t worried me in the slightest. Anyway, I’m starting a new chapter in my life.”
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As for how Lexie leaves Monarch of the Glen, Steele is not saying, beyond the fact that she leaves along with Duncan the hapless ghillie, played by Hamish Clark. Saying goodbye was difficult, she says, especially for a self-confessed “bubbly bairn”. She says she will always have fond memories — like the weekly trip to a Kingussie bar to do karaoke with the crew.
The last day was “awful — really difficult”, she says. “It’s just sad to say goodbye to the people and to the place. The story line has a nice ending. I saw it for the first time a few weeks ago because I was in doing some dubbing for it — and I was crying. It was so sad. It ends on quite a positive note and it’s left open so I can come back. Just in case.”
Somehow I suspect Steele won’t need to go back. She’ll be too busy being famous.