S MAGAZINE ★ 28 JULY 2019 27
INTERVIEW
back to me and I’ve been reading diaries
and crying,” she reveals. “He always
supports me and always believes in
me – more than I believe in myself
sometimes,” she adds.
Considering what she has achieved,
self-doubt is the last thing you would
expect from Lisa. Although it was acting
that made her a household name, she
has reinvented herself in recent years
as a TV chef after winning the 2010
series of Celebrity MasterChef. She has
presented food shows and written
multiple cookbooks, and this
year she and John began
fronting their own
Saturday cookery
series on ITV, John
And Lisa’s Weekend
Kitchen.
The second
series, which sees
the couple whipping
up dishes while
chatting with
celebrity guests,
including some of their
famous friends, began
its second run last month.
“It’s lovely,” Lisa says. “We
have such a nice time. It’s so fun
that we sort of forget that we’re on
television and not at home. It’s just like
being in our kitchen.”
In 2017, Lisa returned to her roots
to play hard-nosed businesswoman Fi
Browning in EastEnders. She still has the
acting bug and says in an ideal world
she would balance her career as a chef
with television roles.
“After doing EastEnders I thought,
‘I thoroughly enjoyed that, playing a
character again,’ and then I did a very
small part in a great new real-life crime
series coming out next month, called A
Confession, on ITV. It’s lovely to cook, but
I still have a passion for acting. It gets
my heart beating.”
Right now, though, Lisa has enough
on her plate. High on her priority list
is her autumn wedding. “I can’t wait,”
she says. “It’s not going to be a huge
wedding but it’ll be a nice size.” And
Billie, of course, will have a starring role
on the day. “She’ll be walking down the
aisle as my best woman.”
After years of heartache, it seems Lisa
has finally found her happy ever after.Lisa’s Faulkner’s book, Meant To Be: My
Journey To Motherhood (Ebury, £16.99),
is out now. See Bookshop on page 77.●S“Once on
the adoption
route there
was no other
choice”