Angela Griffin gives an excited exclamation and says: "This is my best year yet!" The 26-year-old award-winning star of such TV hits as Coronation Street, medical drama Holby City and hairdressing saga, Cutting It, has every reason to be dancing for joy. After a decade in the acting profession, she has starring roles in three major BBC dramas, including the Pauline Quirke vehicle, Down To Earth, the second series of Cutting It and Babyfather, which starts tonight. In the latter Angela plays salsa teacher Chantelle, who met and quickly married Gus - played by David Harewood - in the first series, which explores the lives of four black London men. Although Chantelle willingly gave up her single status, the Leeds-born actress has no immediate plans to tie the knot herself - just yet. "I can't see myself in that situation," Angela says. "My friends are a lot older than me and are looking into the marriage thing. I do want to get married, but maybe I'm quite cynical that it's never going to happen in the near future." Her most publicised romance was with Casualty star Will Mellor. The couple split up three years ago and Will Mellor later claimed they were on the verge of getting married when they parted - something Angela denies. "That's rubbish. It made me really angry when I heard what he had said in that magazine interview." Although Angela claims to be content to be single at the moment, she has very clear ideas of what she thinks are a turn-on and off when it comes to the opposite sex. When asked what she likes most about men she says: "Their simplicity. If a man says you look nice, they mean you look nice. They generally say what they mean, although they're not very good a reading between the lines." With a hectic schedule, which includes filming the three BBC dramas back-to-back, it is a dream which is unlikely to come true for the National Television award-winner in the near future. She has little time for herself. Sounding rather exhausted, Angela admits to working 12-hour days, but doesn't rule out a long- term commitment entirely. "One massive thing that I've learned over the past year is to never say never. I always thought that I was someone who needed to be in a relationship - I never thought I could just go out to dinner with this person and then that person. "I always saw myself as relationship material, but I just don't have the time at the moment to start a relationship anyway." And being focused on herself has certainly paid off - a sign that Angela's acting fortunes have far from waned since she waved goodbye to Coronation Street's Weatherfield four years ago. She's also managed to cut her 30-a-day smoking habit. Angela, who first burst onto television screens almost 10 years ago as feisty hairdresser Fiona Middleton in Corrie, decided to resort to hypnosis to stub out her smoking habit and get her health back on track. "I've smoked since I was 13, so this is a real turning point for me. I'd given up before, by reading Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking, so I knew I could do it. "I just got bored with smoking anyway. On every job I'd find myself smoking up to 30 cigarettes a day. "One day I was speaking to someone about it, and he recommended a hypnotist who has a 95pc success rate. "Before hypnotising me, he talked me through everything, so I knew what was going on. Hypnosis is not this magical thing - you have got to want to give up smoking. It's been two weeks and I feel so much better. "My sense of taste and smell are starting to come back again, I've been drinking more water and exercising, I can actually run a lot farther than before, and I wake up in the morning with a lot more energy. Smoking just sucks everything out of you, all the nutrients and vitamins out of your food." Even such an ordinary experience as watching a film is an eye-opening revelation for Angela. "Going to the cinema is a completely different experience now. Before, I'd sit there thinking, `Hurry up and finish, hurry up and finish,' just because I wanted to step outside and light up a fag!" With her health hitting a new high, Angela can devote all her energy to starring in Babyfather, Down To Earth and Cutting It . Even though it might mean working longer hours, Angela says appreciatively: "The three projects are so different to each other and that's what I enjoy about them." But at least it's not always hard work. Reminiscing on recent filming, Angela says: "I had to do sex scenes in Babyfather - the first time I'd ever done that on television. "One of the funniest moments was when the bed broke in the middle of one of these scenes with David. "All the slats and the mattress fell through and we rolled off the bed and onto the floor!" She continues: "In Down To Earth I play a farmer's wife who's a stepmum to his three kids. I've had to put my hand near a goat's behind and muck in with the pigs. "Working with kids and animals are all new challenges." And then there's Darcey, Henshall Ferraday's resident beautician in the salon-saga Cutting It, which also stars Amanda Holden and Sarah Parish. The new series has just begun filming. Angela says she's quite different from many of her screen roles. "If I don't know people very well I can be shy and quiet. But it comes from the fact that I'm not as confident as I might appear to most people, which I think is the case for a lot of actors, I just don't know what to say. "It's different if somebody comes up to me to chat and then I will talk all day long." Angela is currently living in London's upmarket West Hampstead - a far cry from her upbringing on a Leeds council estate with her mother and two brothers. Her father left to live in New York when she was a four-year-old and her mother brought up the family. "I am really, really close to my mum. We can talk about anything. "I've no chip on my shoulder about dad leaving - in fact, I think I've been very lucky." She was reunited with her dad 15 years after he left his family. "I just needed to see what he was like for myself," Angela explains. But it was her mother who had the major influence on her future career by encouraging her to act when she was a youngster. The fist step was to join the Leeds Children's Theatre and the South Leeds Youth Theatre. "I played Rumpelstiltskin in one production and mum told me that from then on she knew I was going to be in the theatre and that I would be good." Angela beat off one Melanie Brown, aka Scary Spice, to win her part in Coronation Street as a 16-year-old. She feels little regret about leaving the Street after five years. "I wanted to get out into the big, wide world and see what was out there," she admits. "I don't regret leaving the show although I do miss the people. I don't miss many things. "I think if you miss something it means you have regrets and I always believe life should go on." With such a punishing schedule, Angela is certain to be rushed off her feet, but it's clear that whatever challenges lie ahead, she is poised and ready to take up the baton. * Babyfather is on BBC 2 tonight at 9.50pm. | 
