The new Cody Banks girl

Every spy movie series has to have a new girl in each entry. So, for Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London, Hilary Duff is out and the new Banks Girl is Hannah Spearritt. A former member of the British pop band S Club, Spearritt plays Emily, a girl in an international child orchestra that Cody infiltrates on his latest mission.

In person, Spearritt's accent sounds more raw and thick than in the movie. She's a hardcore Brit and sometimes doesn't pronounce the Ts in words. She wore an Anaheim Angels baseball cap and a white tank top, looking almost like a baseball hooligan, but that's the wrong sport. Nothing about her personality was violent though, as she opened up giving the world a chance to get to know the latest Banks Girl, and hopefully the future internationally successful actress.


Is it weird to be sort of a Bond girl but as a teenager? Yeah, I'm like a mini-Bond girl. You can describe me as that. That's fine.


How do you feel about a teenage love interest? Well, we're not love interests. We're more like working partners. We kind of like each other but we're not love interests.


Would you have liked the film to go there? Well, I did ask, but they didn't allow me. And Frankie didn't want me, so never mind.


How do you feel about playing a teenager when you're 23? 22, yeah. It's a good thing. It's good to be able to play younger. I look young so I can do that and at least in life, you've actually been there so you've experienced it so that's fine. And it's a lot easier than trying to pretend to be older and trying to be more womanly and quite really young looking.


How authentic is the film's portrayal of London? It really captures London pretty well actually. And it's all real. It's not pretending to be in London because films are shot in Canada pretending to be in LA, but that happens everywhere. That's the nature of film, that's the beauty of film. You can pretend. But no pretending was done on these locations in London which was great.


Was it fun having spectators watch you work in the streets? You know, whenever there's a film crew, I think there's crowds. But yeah, people were [watching]. I mean, London was busy anyway. We were filming in rush hour times where it's very busy anyway. But yeah, people were coming up and seeing what was going on.


You're in a girl band, S Club, right? I was in a coed band, but we split up last May, about a year ago now. Nine months ago.


Were there S Club fans watching you shoot? There was one fanatic fan, there was this girl called Nicola who was a fan of S Club and she managed to find out where I was, but her friend had seen me and she'd called her and she traveled up. She was there within an hour. So there was her there, but there wasn't like masses of people. But there were Frankie fans, there was Anthony fans and stuff. And then just like film fans or just camera fans, what's going on?


Any plans for more music? Not at the minute. I'm hopefully going to go into acting. That's what I wanted to do before the band anyway. It's more like the band sidetracked me from my original path of where I wanted to go. So hopefully, I mean, if things don't work out, I might have to. But this is what I want to do.


Did you do any martial arts training for the fight scenes? Well, I'd done a little bit of kickboxing with my friend, just going to the local gym. They wanted to put me in for a couple of lessons before we did all the fighting scenes and everything, but there wasn't enough time, so we just worked out the moves on the day. But the bit that wasn't me was that scissor kick. I'm not flexible enough to do that. So yeah, that was my stunt double.


How much input did you have in your costumes? Well, I didn't have any input. With the suit, I went in for a fitting at this tailor's in London. They usually take weeks, like eight weeks to fit a proper suit to you. But they had a sample that actually fitted me quite well, so they just let me make some quick [adjustments]. They had to do it in like four days. They didn't want to do it because that time, it's their format, that's what they do. They spend time on it. They want to do the best job. But she knew our costume designer so she did a special favour for him.


Did you keep it? I was meaning to keep it, but I haven't got it. That was the plan because I haven't got a suit and that one was quite nice, and they did say oh yeah, you can have it. But then he did say, well, you've got to wait because we've got some other stuff to film that we might need the suit in, but I know everything's over now. So, I have to get it when I get back home.


Are you a baseball fan, because of your hat? Well yeah. In a previous interview, I just said, "Who am I wearing?" because I bought this cap. And I was trying to ask the lady in the shop what I was buying, because it was this little Chinese lady and she was like, "I don't know. I don't know what it is," so I said, "Okay, I'll get it anyway because I like the hat." It's baseball, isn't it? Are they a good team?

Yes. So I'm not embarrassing myself.


Did producer Madonna visit the set? She made me tea every day. No. I never saw her. Never saw a fingernail.


Do you like her music? Oh, I used to love her as a kid. I used to love Madonna and I was very shocked when I saw it on the call sheet in the morning, but I never saw her unfortunately.


Were you familiar with the first Agent Cody Banks? Yeah, well, when I got the part, I watched the first film. I sat at home and watched it on DVD. I enjoyed it. I mean, I'm not the target audience but I'm not completely out of the target audience either. It was something I enjoyed. Whether I would go and watch it of my choice at the cinema, I'm not sure. Maybe I would, but I enjoyed it.


How did you get the part? Well, I auditioned in London and then for the audition I had to learn a couple of scenes. And then I went through them with the director. Kevin read through them with me and then from that, I got a call and they asked me to come over to America to do a screen test. At that point, it was between me and another girl and they kept us completely separate even though we were on the same flight. They sat me at the front end of the plane, she was in the back. Then at the hotel, we were on completely different floors so we wouldn't bump into each other. But I did spot her in reception because she had exactly the same make because the same makeup artist had done our makeup and we had exactly the same makeup because we both had a tan and really white faces. So I could tell oh, that must be her. She had all brown hair and I think she was more conservative. I think they probably got two different looks going on. And then Frankie came on the screen test with both of us in different rooms obviously, and then I got back home and I got the part. They called me up and the next day I was in a costume fitting.


Does this make you competitive? Yeah, I suppose I've got a competitive streak in me. I'm an Aries so I probably have. But, I quite enjoy the rejection part as well. You know that whole process of auditioning. Because I've been in it about five years and been bubbled, the five years have been so secured and there's been no chance of anything going wrong unless our fans completely disappear. As long as we were together, we were making music and everything was fine. So I've been really enjoying having that audition process and then being rejected. I'm enjoying that side of it at the minute.


You enjoy risks? Yeah, because I have been bubbled for five years so I'm really enjoying being on my own and going through that normal procedure. I like that.


Are you good at auditions? I think you have good ones and bad ones. I'd like to think that I could do good auditions. Sometimes you come out of it and you feel you've done it really well, but then often they're the ones that you've done really badly. Often you think completely the opposite of what you've just done. So I'd say I had good and bad auditions.


Do you study movies? Yeah, definitely. You always see the camera behind the actors in films. That's something I've got to try and stop doing because you can't just imagine the set and all the crew around and where the craft service would be and everything. That's what I do when I'm watching films. I've got to stop doing that because it ruins the film. It completely ruins the film.


Could you lose your accent if you had to play an American? I'm taking American dialect lessons. There's a couple of vowel sounds we do make mistakes on that I've got to work on, but it's getting there.


What was your weirdest S Club fan encounter? Probably this girl in the far east that asked Tina to sign her arm for her, and then she said I'm going to go get that tattooed now. She went to the tattoo parlor and got it tattooed on her arm.


How did the band form, was it like the Spice Girls? Well, it was the same manager as the Spice Girls, but I think the Spice Girls came to Simon Fuller, whereas Simon Fuller auditioned us and put us together and created us. He was the creator.


What do you think of American Idol? It's huge, isn't it? Very popular. It's good I suppose for people to actually have a chance to get through into the industry. It's hard though rocketing people like that so quickly to fame. I don't think that's a good thing.


Did you watch the British version? Yes, I did, Pop Idol and half of the nation did as well. And it's harsh because you know you watch it because people are getting upset and it's a horrible thing because you're watching it to watch people suffer. And that's not very nice really but that is why we watch it. And I think there's too much of that stuff around to be honest. It's kind of branched out to so many other areas and I don't like to watch too much of it but yeah, I did watch it.


What tips would you give the winners for dealing with fame? Don't take yourself too seriously. Enjoy it. Main thing. And back it up with talent. Do your craft, do your hard work in what you really like and what you're famous for.


What was the first acting job? Well, there's nothing much really recognized, but I was involved in theatre for four years, a great company called the National Music Theatre. And the last show I did with them was a production called Bugsy Malone in the West End. An agent came to see that and then we hooked up, so I got myself an agent and I did a drama for the BBC and she got me a Mercedes commercial which was cool moneywise. So I was hopefully on my road to doing more jobs and I had auditions coming up and everything. And then unfortunately, I left her because this open audition came up for S Club and with that you don't need an agent. I'm thankful it's actually a successful pop band because it was literally one of those advertisements in big black writing saying "Wanna Be a Star?" And you don't expect anything like that to usually come off at all. So me and my friend went out for that not thinking it was going to come of anything. And we just had Sundays off and it was on a Sunday and we went along for it. And then it went onto a second audition, third audition and then being taken to Italy with four other people who were supposedly being in the band and things were being changed around and then yeah, I was in a band.


Do you still live in London? I'm still living in London, yeah.


What do you miss about home? I've been out here about a week and two days, so I'm not missing too much just yet.


Had you spent time in LA before? Yeah, I've spent quite a bit of time and I've got a car out here this time so I've been a little bit more independent and I can get around. You need a car out here so if I didn't have a car, I think I'd be pining to go home a lot more. But at least I can get myself about and drive myself down to auditions and everything. I don't have to rely on somebody else. I don't like that.


How is driving on the other side of the road? Not too much trouble, yeah. I was nervous when I first got in the car, but driving an automatic - see, I drive a gearstick back home, it's a really old car. So you come over here to do an automatic and it's quite easy, so it's quite cool.


Did the Spice Girls ever give you advice? Actually, I can't remember what they did say. We didn't really ever meet them like that, but I think Melanie C did say something really nice once. She was a little bit more mothering to us that way knowing that we were with the same manager and about to go through the same thing as them. So she was quite nice.


What do you enjoy in spare time? Well, mostly I just kind of catch up with friends and stuff. Just recently I got myself a tripod and I'm just doing photography stuff. I might go and take a course. I quite enjoy that. I'm very, very amateur, but I enjoy taking photos and things and I enjoy computer games. I enjoy pitch and putt in the summer. I enjoy going to cinema. You know, it's difficult. It's difficult to do the gym thing but me and my friends go when we have got our act together. We do go to kickboxing together.


What's next? Well, I've got a couple of auditions next week. I'm just auditioning for stuff at the minute.


What kind of films? Hopefully something a bit different. Maybe something lower budget, more independent.


Any more adult roles? Maybe. I'd like to play different parts. I don't mind what age. I think it's an advantage to be able to play younger. I don't think I need to try and get away from that. It'd be nice to do something a little bit more different.


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