EE: Rita Simons features

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[Skylace]

She sounds like she's an all around normal girl and that's good. I have enjoyed Roxy a lot more lately. Even with all her yelling.

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I think she has a man's forehead - it's the strangest thing to keep catching my eye, but it happens every time!

[11antoniacourt]

[pirtybirdy]

She does sound like a nice person in her personal life. I think for me, the thing that most bugs me about her (and it's quite trivial of course) is her hair. It always looks unkept and unbrushed. I think she could look so much better if they would just "organize" it for her...lol! I'm looking forward to see how her storyline pans out. Thanks for the article!

[SpursFan1902]

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that's the problem with soaps - not enough bap shots!

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I'm like Roxy...except I'd never wear a ra-ra skirt and I DO know the father of my kids
By Richard Barber,
sundaymirror.co.uk
26/10/2008

Rita Simons has been arriving home from work lately with her face all blotchy and her eyes rimmed with tears. "I've looked like the girl from The Exorcist," admits the normally bubbly EastEnders star. It's not so surprising when you realise what Rita has been filming.

Her character, blonde and blueeyed tart-with-a-heart Roxy Mitchell, gives birth two months prematurely in harrowing scenes that we'll see next month. The little mite fights for its life. But that's not the only battle going on. There's the small matter of finding out who the father is, a problem that sends Roxy's husband, Sean (the man with the shortest fuse in Walford) into orbit this Christmas. "It's shouting one minute, crying the next," says Rita, 31. "No wonder I look such a wreck by the end of the day. Each day has been like an emotional roller coaster."

By all accounts she gives the performance of her life, which should bode well for the National TV Awards to be announced on Wednesday. Rita is nominated in the Best Newcomer category - while her uncle Sir Alan Sugar (married to her dad's sister) is also nominated for Most Popular Factual Programme. "I love The Apprentice," says Rita. "And he loves EastEnders. I always ask him about it when we meet."

A few tears and blotches aside, life is good for Rita. "I feel so fortunate," she says. 'I never take this role for granted, especially with the horrible state of the world at the moment. I'm so lucky to have a job and one that I love. Then, on top of it, to be nominated. It's incredible." Rita loves Roxy too. 'How could I not? She's a part of me now. In many ways, we're very alike. I used to be a party girl like her. But I do like to think I'm a little bit classier. Roxy's attitude is that she doesn't care if she's 31 - she's going to wear that pink ra-ra skirt. She dresses like a teenager. Everything's too young, too tight, too bright, too revealing. But that's not me in real life. Oh, and I do know who's the father of my children!" But Rita can still identify with Roxy's pain.

In 2005, she found herself pregnant by her husband Theo Silveston. Three months later, her middle already bulging, they went for her first scan. A nurse put jelly on Rita's belly and started the scan. "She said, 'Now there's your baby's head.' I felt tears welling. Then she said, totally deadpan, 'And there's the other one.' I didn't understand. 'What do you mean?' I said. 'Has my baby got two heads?' Theo cracked up laughing. 'No,' he said, 'we're having twins.' I burst out crying. It was such a shock. All my plans were out of the window. Suddenly, everything was double: two prams, two cots and so on."

Their non-identical twin girls, Jaimee and Maiya, were born in April, 2006. "My husband's a hairdresser with two sisters," says Rita. "He's surrounded by women every day. Even our dog's female. So he wanted at least one son. But I'd have been useless with a boy. I'd have dressed him in pink tutus."

Because she lives so close to the EastEnders set, Rita's twins were born at the Hertfordshire baby unit where she's just filmed Roxy's more traumatic scenes. "It was weird going back," she says, "and very emotional. I saw parents glued to the incubators containing their precious babies. But it wouldn't have been appropriate, some actress swanning in and boo-hoo-ing all over the place. It was only when I got outside that I gave into my tears." Back home, she told her husband she was broody again. 'He looked at me appalled. "Absolutely not!" he said. And he's right - for the moment. But we might both feel differently in five years."

The part of Roxy was Rita's first major TV role after 10 years singing in bands. "I was in a group called Tantrum with Ziggy who went on to appear in Big Brother and Duncan James, way before he was in Blue. He's one of my best mates and was an usher at my wedding." Then she then joined a band called Girls@Play who had two Top 20 hits. "I thought I could carry on singing after the twins were born. But it was too much," she says. "After one gig which didn't finish until 4am I turned to Theo and told him I couldn't carry on. I was making myself ill. It was time to listen to what my body was telling me."

Then she heard about an audition for two new roles in East-Enders, sisters Roxy and Ronnie. And she recalls: "Everyone was dolled up - with just one exception. I looked across the room and Sam Janus was dressed down, her nose stuck in her script, just like me. We caught each other's eye and we both said later that it was like love at first sight. When we did our first reading together, the casting director commented on how much warmth there was between us."

Four weeks after that first audition, the parts were theirs. "I just love Sam," says Rita. "We had very similar upbringings and we were both very alike in our younger days. She's like a big sister to me. She's really held my hand from day one."

Rita first met Theo 12 years ago. "In my wild-child years, I went out with a lot of wrong 'uns. But then I met Theo and he was such a gent," she says. "It was so refreshing, after being a real naughty girl, to find myself with someone lovely and sweet and gentle. I just adored him from the minute we met." Nor is Theo threatened by his wife's success or sex appeal. "He's never been the kind of guy to tell me not to wear a short skirt, for instance. In fact, he encourages me because he says he wants to show me off. Ours is an equal relationship. We both wear the trousers in our marriage. Theo's proud of me."

Jaimee and Maiya are still too young to take pride in their mum's storming performance as Roxy. They like it when they recognise her on screen - but don't always get it right. The other day, they pointed at the telly and shouted, 'Mummy! Mummy! That would have been fine,' says Rita, "except it turned out "to be Judy Finnigan!"

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Rita Simons reveals her exercise obsession
and explains why she won't step on the scales
15th December 2009

She may play the confident, brassy Roxy Mitchell on our screens, but EastEnders’ Rita Simons is a clean-living exercise freak when she’s off duty. The svelte actress, who is the niece of Sir Alan Sugar, takes part in a punishing regime of exercise and diets, but draws the line at ever stepping on the scales.

The 32-year-old mother of twins worked out daily while pregnant and was back at the gym as soon as her Caesarean scar healed. She told Closer magazine: ‘I’m hardcore! I’ve walked out of aerobics classes because the teacher wasn’t giving it enough welly. If I don’t get my cardio in, I suffer from anxiety. I get nervy and feel rubbish.’

With a background in girl bands, Rita knows only too well the industry pressures that can influence attitudes to health and appearances. She confessed: ‘When I was 22, I joined a band (Girls@Play) and the manager asked me, “Are you always this big?” ‘I was tiny - 5ft 4in and a size 8 - but when you’re trying to make it you’ll do whatever they ask.’

The budding popstrel began exercising furiously and limiting her diet to just 1,000 calories a day, dropping to a worryingly thin seven stone. Showbiz friends, including Blue’s Duncan James, urged her to eat, fearing for her health. Rita finally gave in after dressing up for a night out and finding her tights were baggy on her. Since then, she’s been a size 8-10, and hasn’t weighed herself since shortly after giving birth back in 2006.

Although she’s living healthily now, and even allows herself the odd pig-out, the actress admitted: ‘I’m never happy with the way I look, ever. I’d like perkier boobs, I hate my nose and the muffin top I’ve had since the children is the bane of my existence! One of these days I might get it all fixed.’

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She was a budding popstrel? Well that's a new word I never needed to hear!

[SpursFan1902]

Maybe she should be as concerned with making her hair look as healthy as her body. It never looks good...but I guess I am probably the only one who notices!!

98lbs at 5ft 4in??? That's crazy thin.

[Skylace]

Damn, I could bench press her!

[SpursFan1902]

I think I could too!

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*link expired

[eefanincan]

"My hair takes quite a battering with all the styling to play Roxy, so I love Anatomicals The Sleek Shall Inherit The Earth Conditioner, £2.49. It makes my locks all lovely again. It also helps that my husband, Theo, is a hairdresser!"

I don't see it myself --- her hair always looks like shit, quite frankly.

[SpursFan1902]

It does look a lot better in the photos that accompany the article than it ever does on EE. I guess it is meant to look bad on EE?