OFFICE STAR'S NEW L.A. LIFE

By Adam Lee-Potter 12/08/2007

She is barely recognisable as pudgy Dawn, the hapless but loveable receptionist in TV's The Office. Tanned, toned and LA beach-beautiful, Lucy Davis - who bears more than a passing resemblance to a young Goldie Hawn - is a stone-and-a-half lighter, despite the non-existent stomach she pats selfconsciously.

"I'm not pregnant," she says, laughing away the rumours. "I just hate the gym. I'd rather read a book than do sit-ups and I've put a little weight back on." Not that you'd know it. The 34-year-old is all prettily petite and looks more at home in Hollywood than she would in an office in Slough. But Lucy - who married Troy actor Owain Yeoman, 33, eight months ago - would like to start a family. "I do want children. I would hate to turn around in 30 years and say, 'Oops, I may be a film star but where are the kids?' But Owain's away filming in Cape Town for seven months. And it's traditional - and, I think, necessary - for a man and a woman to be in the same country when they're trying for a baby."

She winks cheekily. "But I am flying over for 10 days. And who knows? Owain and I are very family-oriented. This job can be intense - sometimes you have to drop everything and zoom off to a job with just three days' notice.

"But life isn't about having either family or a job. It's about getting the balance right. Children are definitely on the cards.

"And I love America - though I miss my family horribly. It would be nice to bring up a child here. I used to joke that if I had a baby, I'd have to let my parents bring him or her up in Britain until they'd learnt to say Mum instead of Mommy.

"But it's how you're brought up, not where, that matters. Yes, you do see people here barely acknowledging waiters or clicking their fingers in restaurants. But that happens in London, too."

Lucy is, by contrast, fantastically polite and, in the flesh, just the right side of kooky.

Her work ethic springs, no doubt, from her realisation that life is short. A diabetic, she needed a lifesaving kidney transplant 10 years ago. Her mother Hazel was the donor. "Something like that makes you realise that you can look at life in a couple of ways. You can say, 'Why me?' or you can say, 'Why not me?' But I'm healthy now and feeling great. Millions of people have worries. You just have to deal with them.

"Maybe that is why I don't want to work just for the money. I need things to give me pleasure. When you get up at 4am to go on set, it's important to do something that's fun and worthwhile - that you can be proud of."

Sometimes she giggles shyly as she talks - a mannerism that neatly offsets the loucheness of her new LA pad - a £750,000 bungalow just off Sunset Strip. She has lived in California since The Office made her - and her co-stars - part of the Ricky Gervais Brit Pack now so loved by America. "When I first came out I thought LA was brilliant. But the next day I thought: 'What have I done?' I felt like a 12-year-old child who didn't know anyone. I ended up popping back and forth. But two years ago I suddenly woke up and realised, 'LA is my home'."

America has certainly wrought the changes. Lucy, who had just split from her boyfriend of 13 years, writer Richard Manson, met her future husband just after moving to LA. Again, she has much to thank The Office for. "A mutual friend - Patrick Baladi, who played David Brent's boss Neil - introduced us at a party. Owain was a fan of The Office, so maybe that helped. But I didn't know him from Adam. And ours wasn't an immediate attraction. We were friends for a long, long time. He was my first and best friend in LA. I think we were both scared of getting involved in case it all went wrong and we ended up losing a really good friendship.

"How often do you embark on a relationship and think, 'This is going to end up with us getting married in a year's time?' But somehow that's what happened." Lucy's eyes still gleam with the zeal of a newly-wed. Owain is away filming the new HBO series Generation Kill, in which he plays a US marine court-martialled in Iraq.

"Time apart - though seven months is more like an era - is tough. But it helps us stay fresh.

"As actors, we are very similar. We both know how it hurts when we don't get a job and how euphoric you are when you do. And we make each other laugh, all the time. That may sound sickly but if you can't be disgustingly content eight months in, God help you. We've got years ahead of us. Owain should just have finished filming by the time of our first anniversary. But anniversaries don't mean anything. If he forgets, I won't be cross. Not at all. A good relationship is about the in-between times, not a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates once a year."

The couple married at St Paul's Cathedral in London last year - in the exclusive OBE crypt, courtesy of her father, comedian Jasper Carrott.

"Our wedding was special. I didn't even want any flowers because it didn't need any embellishment. I was so aware of wanting to remember that day as it was." Such girlish froth could easily grate - she is 34, after all. But, fresh-faced and self-effacing, she is impossible to dislike.

"Maybe some of LA has rubbed off on me," she frets. "But I love the fact that, here, you can talk to anyone about what you do - and it doesn't sound like you're showing off."

Hollywood has fallen for her too, gifting her roles in Ugly Betty and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. She's just filmed Californication with David Duchovny and narrowly lost out to Toni Collette for a role opposite Cameron Diaz. "Cameron's so lovely," she sighs. "I thought she'd be snotty. But she was charming. I was thrilled to be asked to audition."

She'll also be filming movies Bob Funk and UK-based Coat Check Girl this year. She says: "Coat Check Girl is like Amelie but set in Soho. I play a dizzy girl who runs off to London after her wedding."

The character sounds desperately similar to love-torn Dawn. But Lucy isn't concerned about any resemblance. "I'm not worried about being typecast. I was incredibly lucky to work in something as great as The Office. And I know it would take something incredibly strong and special to eclipse it. So what? When you come to LA, everyone thinks you want to be Julia Roberts or Cameron Diaz. But if I get to 80 or 90 and I've worked solidly and loved it and been paid for it, I'll be happy.

"Of course, if I become a great film star that would be fantastic - I won't deny it. But that wasn't the reason that I went into acting. I went into acting because I love it. I was in The Archers for 10 years. And you can't get much further from Hollywood than Ambridge!"

As well as having a profound work ethic, Lucy is a strong supporter of animal rights - she backs the charity PETA and in particular their campaign to outlaw the bearskin hats worn by the Queen's Guards.

"I'm not anti-royal and I'm not a vegetarian. But there's more than one way to live your life. You can be spiritual without going to church. And you can be anti-fur and cruelty but eat meat.

"I just think these hats are wrong. They serve no military purpose - they're not even bullet-proof. And it takes almost one bear to make a single hat. How can that be right?"

Her voices catches as she remembers those bears. And, unusually for an actress, it's utterly genuine.

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