Much Ado About Nothing

Explaining how she joined the cast, Billie said, "At drama school we studied Shakespeare three days a week, so when the script was floating around, I was quite keen to get a look at it.
"It's so good, and when I heard that Sarah and Damian were involved, I knew I'd be in good company."
But Shakespeare hasn't always been such an inviting prospect for Billie.
"I think Shakespeare dominated about four years of my life and, at first, I used to find it so daunting. The thought of sitting down with Shakespearian text used to scare me. But then I went to theatre school and it took on a whole new life. I became a huge fan."
Researching for the role, Billie visited a real-life weathergirl.
"She showed me some footage of her when she first started and that was really beneficial. There are certain ways to hold and present yourself and there's also a rhythm in the way news reporters speak – you have to get hold of that intonation. And then I just watched daytime TV solidly for about a week!"
The main challenge, shared by both Billie and Hero, was wrapping their tongues around mind-boggling meteorological terms. "Altostratus castellanus," took the prize for most difficult word to pronounce.
"Mid-take, you'd find your top lip curled and you'd be sweating like a pig," Billie confides. "Those lines really did give you the fear.
"But I was working on Doctor Who at the same time, so I was getting used to saying words that I'd never used in my life, and also words that weren't in the dictionary – just made-up, [writer] Russell T Davies words – so I started to get better and better at pronouncing the difficult ones.
The best aspects of filming Much Ado included the script – "genuinely funny, with laugh-out-loud jokes" – and the friendships which developed.
"It was an ensemble piece and we all gelled and got on so well – that was one of the highlights," adds the vivacious actress.