Living Life the Essex Way Read Free Page A

going on – and also I reckon so she knew exactly what was
happening in my life. That way she could decide which bits would be the most interesting to film. The idea is that the
TOWIE
producers always know exactly what is going on with you, so if
I thought I fancied someone, or I was really mad at someone, I’d tell them.
    Sadly Sarah only worked on
TOWIE
for series one – and then went off to be a producer on
Made in Chelsea
. Can you believe she dropped us for that show?! I guess she was
offered more money though, and I don’t blame them for wanting her – she is really good at her job and we were sad to see her go. I do actually like
Made in Chelsea
too.
It’s weird, because it is like a different world from Essex, but at the same time they go through a lot of the same things as us. I always say though, no matter how good it is,
TOWIE
is still the best!
    The way filming works is that we are told how many weeks the show will be on for, and we have to keep those free, while still living our normal lives, if you get what I mean. So, for example, if
I am told to keep ten weeks free from the start of September, I can’t go booking any holidays or making any big plans in that time.
    While we get on with life as normal, we also have to allow for what they want to film. That takes priority over anything else for those ten weeks. So say I want to go and visit a friend in
London, but it is not something the producers want to film and they decide they need footage of me in Minnies, I have to cancel my friend and go to Minnies. And the hardest thing is that we only
get told the night before whether we are needed the next day and at what times. So life definitely revolves around
TOWIE
for those ten weeks. I’m not having a moan about it though
– it is my job really and I love it! Luckily I’m still close to my old friends, and they are all really understanding when and if I have to cancel on them. I always try to rearrange our
plans and make it up to them by passing on some of the freebies I get sent.
    Of all three series we have done, the first one was my favourite to film. We just had so much fun. You know when you start at school and you are making new friends and learning new things and
everything is fresh and exciting? Well it was like that at the beginning. And we weren’t known yet, so looking good in case the paps were around wasn’t an issue. Things like whether the
bit we were filming might annoy people and we would get abuse for it on Twitter hadn’t occurred to us yet, so we were just totally enjoying ourselves and having a mad time. Sorry to be all
sentimental – because, don’t get me wrong, I have loved filming every series since – but I guess I just look back on it as being a time of innocence or something, kind of like you
look at your junior school days in a ‘wasn’t it nice’ sort of way.
    Seriously, Amy, Harry and I had the best time filming together in the salon. We would get self-conscious when we suddenly remembered the cameras were there, or just make ourselves hysterical so
that we’d cry with laughter. It took us a while to learn how to ignore the cameras and behave naturally, but now it’s pretty much second nature to us.
    We didn’t plan what we would do or say – that was just us. I think you can see everyone’s true colours most clearly in series one. You see Lauren really out of control, you see
Mark and his ‘she’s fit’ comments, and as for Amy . . . I know some people questioned whether she was acting or given lines, but, believe me, that was the real Amy! The funny,
sweet, lovely, say-anything-that-pops-into-her-head girl who was my best friend from school. It’s definitely more the real her than the Amy we saw on her solo show
It’s All About
Amy
, where I could see that everything she was saying and doing was too thought out for the cameras, whether she knew it or not. Maybe that’s why a second series wasn’t
commissioned.
    When you look at how