Lisa Turner

Plays
Gina Rossi

Lisa walks in her still squeaky new prison officer shoes, making a trim figure in her Prison Officer’s uniform.   “My mum is a big fan of Bad Girls.  So it was great when I knew I had an audition, she found the end of the last episode of series two on tape for me to watch.  If you remember, it was quite wacky: Sylvia on E and in this big blue dress, all these lifers serving drinks at a party, Nikki escaping in a blonde wig - I was certainly drawn in but wasn’t quite sure what I was letting myself in for!

“It took quite a while for it to sink in when I was actually offered Gina, and that I had a really nice long TV job in what I knew was a popular series.  But I didn’t realise how popular until a week later when Bad Girls won the National TV Award for best drama!  I mean, how wonderful to be going into a job like that. Mind you it did make me a bit nervous.  I imagined a much more heightened and charged working atmosphere, the whole big production thing.

“Pretty well the whole cast, production and crew from props, design, makeup, the lot of them are all on their third series now of Bad Girls.  I mean no-one has forced them to come back for three!  Everyone wants to come back and that says it all.  It is amazing!

“I went home to my husband, David, after my first day and said how really supportive everyone on the team is.  Sounds crap I know, but I was the first new one on the block this series and I feel settled already.

“As for Gina Rossi, I think we’re probably similar in some ways. She’s an outrageous flirt, passionate about her work and uses her mouth – although I haven’t got such a foul mouth as her!

“In the script the other officers seem to already know Gina as she is being transferred from another wing.  So I thought I should know them and watched the last series on tape.  I intended to spread it out, but I just had to watch the whole thing in one go – I was Bad Girl’d out!  It was great and I certainly felt like I knew everyone”.

Lisa has worked extensively in theatre from Olivia in Twelth Night to winning  The Sunday Times Award for Best Female Actor in Sixteen at the Dublin Festival.  She is still probably remembered for her lead role as a child in the long running TV series Into the Labyrinth with Ron Moody.