USA Today

Los Angeles

A jet-lagged Martine McCutcheon has made a brief touchdown between Los Angeles and New York for a quick chat and a spot of lemon herbal tea. Next stop: worldwide fame.

“I thought I would never be in movies and I would never be taken seriously if I do soaps because it carries a stigma in England,” says the former TV barmaid who met her demise under the wheels of a car.

Instead, she found herself mingling with the likes of Emma Thompson and Billy Bob Thornton on the set of ‘Love Actually’, her second film. (The first was a forgettable “artsy” black comedy.)

She says Thornton, who plays a lecherous US president, told her, “‘You look like a Disney character. Snow White.’ I said, ‘Well, where’re my dwarves?’” She does have the milky skin, raven hair and innocent baby face of a cartoon princess.

Actually, McCutcheon is more Cinderella, waiting for the other showbiz shoe to drop. The British singer-actress already is a stalked celebrity in her native land, where tabloids regularly coo and caw over her triumphs and travails.

When this demi-diva won surprise raves as Eliza Doolittle in a West End production of ‘My Fair Lady’ in 2001, they cheered. When a virus and throat strain caused her to call in sick more often than she appeared, they dubbed her “Martine Do-Little”. McCutcheon got the last laugh, winning an esteemed Olivier award for her stage work. “They love to build you up and tear you down,” she says.

Few know her outside her homeland. Save for Liza Minnelli. They met at a London nightclub and became instant chums. So much so that Minnelli asked her to be a bridesmaid at her 2002 wedding to David Gest. What with Elizabeth Taylor as maid of honour and Michael Jackson as toastmaster, it was one surreal affair. “I said to (model) Helena Christensen, who was at my table, ‘Oh, get that wedding singer trying to do Tony Bennett.’ She said, ‘That is Tony Bennett.’”

Her first-ever dash down the red carpet was for the premiere of ‘Love Actually’. “I’m still kind of in shock that I’m in it,” she admits. “It’s only as I talk about it that it seems real.”

Right now, she barely knows what time it is. She glances at a tower of pastries and declines even a taste. “I feel I should be eating corn flakes now,” she says with her Cockney lilt.

But McCutcheon knows where she is going. Up. She has been heading that way ever since she was born on the rough side of London to an unwed teen mother and a hard-drinking, abusive father. She was a natural performer, entering drama school at age 10 and doing time in an all-girl rock band before landing on ‘EastEnders’. Turns out ‘Love Actually’ director Richard Curtis was a huge fan during her four-year run.

“She is what you see,” he says. “The most buoyant, explosive character on the show. Absolutely gorgeous.”

When McCutcheon phoned him in a nervous panic before the first day of rehearsals for ‘Love Actually’, wondering whether Hugh Grant would like her and if she’d be good enough, he put her at ease by barking, “Oh, shut up, Tini. I wrote the part for you.” She had no idea.

There were side benefits to the job. Like being forced to kiss Grant passionately for 14 takes and being able to chow down on Chinese takeout to maintain the seven pounds she gained to fill out her figure.

Then there was the advice, the best coming from actress Laura Linney: “She said to really, really enjoy this magical time. Milk it for all you can.”

She is trying. McCutcheon is doing screen tests in Hollywood, waiting to see what music label wins her services in an ongoing bidding war, and meeting the right people, such as Neil Meron, an executive producer of the Oscar-winning musical ‘Chicago’. She offered to “do the splits, the kicks, the cartwheels” for him and partner Craig Zadan right then and there. Instead, “I’m going to take him to dinner at the Ivy in London.”

Sounds like Martine McCutcheon is about to arrive any minute.