Laila rouass biography

English actress (born )

Laila Rouass (néeAbdesselam; born 22 June ) is a British actress. She is best known for her portrayals of Amber Gates in Footballers' Wives (–) and Sahira Shah in Holby City (–, ).

Laila Rouass. Actress: Conan the Barbarian. Laila Rouass was born in London to Moroccan/Indian parents. Laila studied in Britain but decided to drop her studies and travel in India for a few months. A few months turned into six years. Whilst living in Bombay, she worked for MTV, BBC, and TNT.

She has also starred in Primeval and Spooks and been a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, in which she finished fourth.

Early life

Laila Abdesselam was born on 22 June to an Indian mother and a Moroccan father, she grew up with six siblings in Tower Hamlets in the East End of London.^[1][2][3] She was raised Muslim but is now non-practising, although she calls the Islamic faith an vital part of her identity.^[1]

Career

Rouass worked as a VJ on Channel V in India in the s.^[4] While on Channel V, she appeared in a melody video for the band Colour Blind, directed by the then creative head of the channel, Shamin Desai.^[5]

After moving back to the UK, Rouass became well-known for playing the role of Bollywood actress Amber Gates in the cult ITV1 series Footballers' Wives between and and, albeit briefly, in the ITV2 spin-off series Footballers' Wives: Extra Time.

She also played recurring roles in the British soaps Family Affairs and Hollyoaks,^[6] as good as appearing in episodes of I Dream, Casualty and Meet the Magoons. She starred alongside Meera Syal in the television adaptation of Syal's novel Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee.

Category: Cinema. Laila Rouass is a British actress who has acted in Indian movies as well. She is born to an Indian mother while her father belongs to Morocco. She is best known for the television shows, Footballers' Wives — where she played the role of Amber Gates and Holby City —12 in which she essayed Sahira Shah.

Rouass was ranked No and No on FHM Sexiest Women in the World and FHM Sexiest Women in the World respectively.

In she appeared as EgyptologistSarah Page in the third series of the ITV science-fiction series Primeval.

She left the demonstrate when the location of filming was changed to Dublin for series four and five, saying it would be hard to continue participating, for she was a single parent;^[7] and her character was subsequently killed off-screen between the third and fourth series.

In spring of , Rouass announced that she would be making a film about Leila Khaled, who led the hijacking of a flight from Rome to Athens in Rouass stated she had funding for the film.^[8]

She played Maya Lahan, a regular character introduced in the ninth series of BBC One drama Spooks which telecast from September ^[9] She guest starred as the evil Colonel Karim in The Sarah Jane Adventures in October ^[10] Rouass then joined the cast of the BBC medical drama Holby City, appearing from February as registrar Sahira Shah.^[11] She left Holby City on 17 April , after just 14 months on the show, to get a break to spend age with her family.

She returned to the role of Sahira Shah on 9 February

In She Appeared In Midsomer Murders as Stephanie King in The Flying Club & then come back again as Vanessa Debouverie in episode A Grain of Authenticity

She is also currently one of the presenters of "The Channel 4 TV Book Club".

^[12]

In July , it was announced that Rouass would be joining the BBC soap opera EastEnders as Ayesha Siddhu, a woman from Suki Panesar's past.^[13]

Strictly Come Dancing

She participated in the seventh series of Strictly Arrive Dancing, a BBC One existence show, paired with professional dancer Anton Du Beke, and alongside Footballers' Wives co-star Zöe Lucker.^[14]

The pair made it to the last four before being voted off the show on 6 December She was unable to participate in the final on 19 December to reprise her partnership with Anton Du Beke due to a last-minute personal emergency.^[15]

Film career

Rouass' first film was City of Dreams produced by Feroze Nadiawala, in which she starred opposite Lisa Ray and Saeed Jaffrey.^[6][16] During the years that she was based in India, early in her career, she acted in some Indian films, Aditya Bhattacharya's Indo-Italian Senso unico () and Dev Benegal's Split Wide Open ().

In , Rouass starred in Jag Mhundra's controversial film, Bawandar (English title; The Sand Storm),^[17] about revenge rapes in Rajasthan,^[18] and she made her English-language clip debut in with a little role in The Four Feathers opposite Heath Ledger.^[6]

She starred in The Hunt Feast (),^[19] and in she was cast in Aditya Raj Kapoor's film Don't Stop Dreaming.^[20]

Rouass also appeared in the independent British film Shoot on Sight () opposite Brian Cox, Om Puri and Sadie Frost.

In , she appeared in two films, Freebird and the New Zealand funded Apron Strings.^[21]

Rouass appeared in the Harlan Coben Netflix original 8 part mini-series Safe where she played Lauren Marshall.^[22]

Personal life

In , she married family friend Abdeslam Rouass, but the couple divorced in without having consummated their marriage.^[23][24] Rouass then lived with London businessman Nasir Khan, with whom she held a commitment ceremony in before family and friends.

She later faced criticism for referring to herself and Khan as a married couple, even though the ceremony had no legal standing.^[2] She gave birth to their daughter Inez in February , but ended her relationship with Khan shortly afterwards.^[25] In , Khan was sentenced to nine years in prison for his money-laundering role in a £ million VAT fraud conspiracy.^[26]

From to , Rouass dated celebrity chef James Petrie.^[1] In , she began dating professional snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan, to whom she became engaged in February ^[27] Rouass and O'Sullivan appeared together as guests on BBC's Saturday Kitchen in February ^[28] In February , Rouass announced on social media that the couple had ended their relationship,^[29] but they subsequently reconciled.^[30] She features in the documentary about his playing career, Ronnie O'Sullivan: The Edge of Everything.^[31]

In August , Rouass was caught up in the Barcelona terrorist attack, writing on Twitter during the incident that she was hiding in a restaurant freezer.^[32]

Filmography

Awards and nominations

References

External links