Alexandra Burke on motherhood, method acting and her film debut: ‘I did an hour on my spin bike to celebrate getting the part’

After some of the most difficult years of her life, singer and ‘X Factor’ winner Alexandra Burke has found happiness. She talks to Jessie Thompson about life after ‘Strictly’, her new film ‘Pretty Red Dress’ and that Beyoncé duet

'I remember reading something on Instagram the other day. It said: think about where you were five years ago and what you were praying for and ask yourself now if you’ve achieved it. And I was like, yes!’ (Laura Lewis)

Imagine if Alexandra Burke was your life coach. Well, in another life, she could have been. “I actually studied to be a life coach in New York for 18 months in 2013, 2014,” the singer tells me, remembering. Then, almost confidentially, she adds, “Do you know what? They actually wanted to hire me. Because they didn’t know who I was.” The 34-year-old performer, who won the fifth series of The X Factor in 2008 and has sold over 5 million records, had to let them down gently. “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m really sorry, I’m actually a singer from the UK.’ They were like, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve just done this for my own confidence, to help with my career and stuff.’ They said, ‘But we want to hire you as a life coach,’ and I said, ‘That’s really beautiful, but I actually can’t – I’ve got to go back and record an album.’”

Oh, how I wish Alexandra Burke was my life coach. But no, in this reality, she’s adding another string to her bow, starring in her first film, the grown-up indie drama Pretty Red Dress. Like Billie Piper and Lily Allen before her, the switch is triumphant, defying any “but she’s a pop star” scepticism. “I’m gonna mention it,” she says, looking over at her manager, “because I’m really proud. I read online – I didn’t think it was real – that I got nominated for the National Film Awards for this film.” It’s deserved: Burke is a great actor. Naturalistic, warm and subtle, she’s able to convey simmering, painful depths.

Dionne Edwards’ intimate debut film is about a family rocked by the surfacing of their individual innermost desires. Burke plays Candice, a mother who works in a supermarket, auditioning to play Tina Turner in a musical. (“The songs of Tina Turner have been the soundtrack to parts of my life,” Burke tells me, just days before the music icon passed away at the age of 83.) When Candice’s boyfriend Travis (Natey Jones) is released from prison, he buys her a fabulous, sparkly red dress – but finds himself drawn to it, too. Meanwhile, their daughter Kenisha is also trying to understand her own sexuality. “It’s all the f***ing colours of the rainbow with my family,” Candice roars at one point.

The casting is clever: Burke and Candice both have an innate star quality. Burke is a very British kind of diva. She has a voice that could stop traffic, but also two dedicated Instagram accounts for her dogs. This is the woman who, in one of The X Factor’s greatest moments, reacted as we all would if duetting with Beyoncé – crying throughout in disbelief – while actually pulling off a barnstorming, unforgettable rendition of “Listen” from Dreamgirls at the same time.

Today at the BFI offices, Burke steps out of a taxi wearing a bright red jacket and high heels, and it feels a bit like the queen has arrived. An entourage trails after her. “This is it, hun! Get that on the ’gram!” I hear her say with glee (the BFI logo is later to be found on her Instagram stories). It’s unsurprising her old record label used to call her “Duracell bunny”. Wearing a black shoulderless top, her makeup and hair immaculate, and gold hoops gleaming from her ears, Burke – with a baby bump from her recently announced second pregnancy – doesn’t look like what she is: a new and expectant mother who has had very little sleep. “This feels like a day out for me!” she cackles. “Baby’s with daddy, I’m away… it’s the first time away from the baby.”

Although she’s appeared on stage in Chess, The Bodyguard and Sister Act, this kind of acting is something new for Burke. Something she always wanted to do, too, but her mother, the late Melissa Bell, a singer in Soul II Soul and profound influence on Burke, advised her to “concentrate on your singing, and the rest will follow after”. Bell always had a sense of Burke’s destiny: “Even when I was on The X Factor, she said to me, ‘Just so you know, you’re gonna win.’ And I’m like, ‘Woman, you’re not a psychic.’” After Pretty Red Dress, she’d like to do more acting. “I do want people to hopefully see me as a serious actress, and to give me every fighting chance in auditions. And if I don’t make it, that’s fine. I’d rather have constructive criticism than nothing at all.”

The role of Candice is one she pursued with typical Burke-esque application and focus. “My way of auditioning, if it’s not face to face, is through method acting. One scene was in the studio, and one scene was in the car, so I plonked myself in my home studio and filmed myself. And then the other one, I plonked myself in the car and was pretending to drive – the whole thing,” she explains. “Dionne said to me, ‘I’ve not had anyone send me a self-tape where they’re doing method acting for a very long time. You went above and beyond.’”

Later, auditioning again on Zoom to a bunch of camera-off black boxes – which “felt really awkward, if I’m honest” – Burke made sure to tell the casting team, “Just so you know, Candice is me.” When she got the call to say she’d landed the part, Burke was “beside myself, crying. And then to celebrate, I did an hour’s spin on my spin bike. I know, I sound very strange. But I did an hour’s spin.”

Film debut: Alexandra Burke stars alongside Natey Jones in ‘Pretty Red Dress’ (BFI)

How can you not be thrilled for her? The script, though, did make her nervous at first – there are a handful of sex scenes. “To be honest with you, when I finally read the full script and saw that I had to do an intimacy course and stuff like that, I was a bit like” – her voice becomes hushed – “Ohhh, this is gonna be something my dad may not wanna watch. I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit taken aback by it. But I said to myself, this is a great challenge and I’m in safe hands.” The film’s message is also an important one. “Especially in the Black community, it’s always a taboo subject to either come out as gay, or to say you have a feminine side – it’s very difficult to be open like that.”

As a parent, Burke admits she’s not feeling too conscious yet of how to support her children in their gender and sexuality – her baby, with partner, the Bournemouth and Ireland goalkeeper Darren Randolph, is not even one (their second child is due around Christmas). Recently, she spoke about her decision not to reveal her children’s names or genders to the public, in order to protect their privacy. It’s the kind of boundary that points to a more assured, confident Burke. When I interviewed her in 2018, she was clearly vulnerable, grieving the death of her mother and fresh from weeks of disturbing trolling and vicious press stories prompted by her Strictly Come Dancing appearance. She’d been forced to deny reports that she was “difficult” and “a diva” backstage, or that she was embroiled in a feud with her dance partner, Gorka Marquez. When I asked her then why she never seemed to take a day off, she became tearful, admitting her busy schedule helped her deal with anxiety and panic attacks.

“I went through a very traumatic time during Strictly, personally, and didn’t really address it until lockdown. That’s me being completely frank,” she admits. At the start of the pandemic, she’d lost a good friend to suicide and had to face up to her usual coping mechanisms. “I remember saying to myself, I need to slow down, I need to take time for my friends, people that matter, rather than grilling myself for work, work, work, work, work because it’s a good distraction for me if I’m hurting inside.” Although training to be a life coach had been valuable, in the pandemic “the brain started going, and I couldn’t use my own tools” – so she hired a life coach of her own. “I had to seek help, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done.” Back then, she used to rush each day, struggling with the pain of her mum’s loss; now that she has a baby, Burke understands the importance of enjoying every moment.

I went through a very traumatic time during ‘Strictly’, personally, and didn’t really address it until lockdown

Does she feel there were enough protections in place for her on Strictly? In a video she posted to Instagram in the wake of Black Lives Matter, Burke spoke about a number of difficult industry experiences and said of that time, “How I got through it, now I look back and I have no idea. I don’t even like thinking about that experience at all.” Today, she says, that period is “a blur”. For the first instance in our conversation, her cheery, fast-talking chat slows down. She sighs. “It’s really hard when you’ve lost someone so significant in your life, to then try and use your job as a distraction. I wouldn’t ever advise someone to do that,” she says. At the time, it worked, but “you need to let your emotions and your soul and your heart heal, however long it takes you. Whereas I didn’t really give it a fighting chance at the time. So, when you ask about protection in place for me personally, I don’t know how to answer that. Only because I don’t want to drag that time up again.”

Lately, though, she is feeling “very, very blessed”. Even so, being a working mother is “relentless,” she says, “and if any woman says it’s not, that means they’ve got 10 nannies behind them waiting.” Burke and Randolph don’t have a nanny, and everyone keeps telling her she’s “brave” – especially having “two under two”. The plan had always been to have babies back to back, but neither had expected it to happen so quickly. “We were like, ‘Oh my gawd, it’s meant to be!’” she says, laughing. “God said, now’s the time.”

‘I still cry when I watch it’: Burke duets with Beyoncé shortly before her ‘X Factor’ win in 2008 (Ken McKay/Shutterstock)

One day, Burke will show her children her duet with Beyoncé. “I still cry when I watch it,” she tells me. (When I mention a quote from Louis Walsh in Reach for the Stars, Michael Cragg’s oral history of Nineties and Noughties pop, in which he suggests Burke only won because of the Beyoncé duet, she erupts into laughter. “Bless his heart.”) After a few difficult years, everything in her life seems to be turning out the way she wanted. “I remember reading something on Instagram the other day. It said: think about where you were five years ago and what you were praying for and ask yourself now if you’ve achieved it. And I was like, yes!” she says. “Because I went back in my diaries – I’ve been keeping a journal since 1999 – and about four years ago, I’d written, ‘I just really want to meet the right person that’s going to love me for who I am, and accept me, and have a baby, and have a family.’ And here I am.” She looks down at her bump, and then looks up, face full of happiness. “This baby’s jumping around right now!”

‘Pretty Red Dress’ is in cinemas from 16 June