Amelia Warner (document en anglais)

Amelia Warner - Lorna Doone finally gets what she really wants

As an actress, Amelia Warner had it all. So why did she jack it in to sing cover versions of Eighties hits? She tells Charlotte Cripps (THE INDEPENDANT)

The singer Slow Moving Millie, aka Amelia Warner, 29, is perhaps best known for her lead role as Lorna Doone in the BBC costume drama of 2000. She also hit the papers when, a year later, at 19 years old, she "married" actor Colin Farrell, in a non-legal ceremony on a Tahitian beach.

"It was either that or shark feeding at the reception desk of the hotel," says Warner meekly when we meet. "It was just a man holding a shell. Colin and I wore skirts." Although the couple were engaged at the time for real, they split up four months later. "Like any first love it ended in tears and heartbreak," Warner adds.

But despite her acting past most people will have heard Warner singing recently without even knowing it. Her cover of The Smith's "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want" was picked up by John Lewis for their Christmas advert after Universal Music submitted the song. And now Warner – who also played Michael Caine's child bride, in Quills, at the age of 18, has put acting firmly behind her.

Instead she has just released an album of covers, Renditions under the name of Slow Moving Millie. It features her stripped-back versions of Eighties hits, with her on piano. Songs include Bananarama's "Love in the First Degree", Black's "Wonderful Life", and "The Power of Love", which was made famous by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Despite her delicate and hauntingly beautiful voice, you can't but help crave the original version of the song. Luckily, then, she is in the studio recording her debut album of her own songs, which she describes as "dramatic", "orchestrated with big arrangements", and "busy" with a "cinematic soundtrack" feel to them. Two of her own songs are on the Renditions album ("Beasts" and "Hart with a Crown & Chain") to give a taste of the magical, fairytale world of her music. Warner who signed to Island Records a few months ago, is currently playing about with forming a band.

"It is just me alone with a piano at the moment", she says. Her musical influences include Tim Burton's films, as well as music by Rufus Wainwright and Randy Newman – because of "the storytelling in their songs". Very shy in person, Warner, who has a vulnerable quality to her and is wearing a vintage orange coloured blouse and floral silk miniskirt – has expended an enormous amount of energy overcoming her phobia of being in the limelight – a strange problem for a performer.

"The constant pressure of having to prove myself as an actress didn't sit well with me. I got fed up with acting because my heart was never in it. I'd be in LA auditioning in front of 30 people. The feedback that I always got was that I didn't want it," she says. "I was up against lots of actresses who would fight tooth and nail for a part but I didn't have the passion. I didn't want to suffer through the moments of nervousness. I felt exposed and judged all the time. So I thought it was best to get out. Music is my soulmate but that's

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