ACTRESS Mandy Vernon-Smith has come home to Minchinhampton after almost two decades away.

Currently starring in a Bristol theatre comedy about the Blitz, she talks to SNJ reporter David Gibbs about life in the limelight.

"I couldn't have the stage name Smith, because it's a bit common," says Mandy explaining how she tagged on her middle name for a more memorable moniker.

Making coffee in the kitchen of her parents' Tetbury Street home, she is bright, cheery, bubbly and extrovert although these apparently are not necessarily the qualities needed to succeed as an actor.

"Some of my most introverted friends are the best actors but the only thing is, unfortunately, they don't always get the work," she says. "You don't have to be extrovert."

But there are some acting jobs where it helps, such as jumping out of a packet of Polos for a TV advertisement or prancing through the streets of London in a bright green leotard for a Channel Five comedy insert.

It is all about being able to swallow your pride and laugh at life, especially as an actor's life is etched with rejection...endless rejection.

"Rejection is one thing as an actor you have to be able to take," says Mandy. "You are always going up for things and you learn not to take it too personally. It's all about what they are looking for. Now I just take it with a pinch of salt. Since becoming more blas about it I have got a lot more work."

Budding actors also have to come to terms with the reality that a wellspring of work flows only for a fortunate few.

After winning most improved student in her first year, Mandy thought the sky was the limit. "When you leave drama school you just think you are going to walk into stardom and get work and more work," says Mandy.

"If I had to do it again I would have learned a secondary skill like typing, even though I wouldn't be very good in an office. It was incredibly hard to get castings.

"You can have a really fantastic year and go from one thing to the next and then one year where you think why did I choose this career?"

Ever since she was a girl Mandy wanted to be an actress, indulging her passion early on at The Jill Woods' Theatre Company in Minchinhampton.

Educated at Minchinhampton Primary School, Eastcombe Manor School (now Thomas Keble) and Archway, where she did Theatre Studies A-level, Mandy went on to study at Guildford School of Acting.

"I just wanted to act - right from when I was a little girl," she says. "Guildford was quite musical but even though I did end up doing a little bit I always had two left feet when it came to dancing. I can belt out a song but I'm not a born singer."

Graduating from Guildford at 21, she won her equity card by touring a drink drive play around schools for six months.

She cut her acting teeth traversing the length and bread of the country on tour. She has racked up roles in a formidable array of productions, including Under Milkwood, Whale Music, Jump to Cow Heaven, The Maharajah's Daughter and Wild Girl, Wild Boy about the Krays brothers and 1960s gangster London.

Although Mandy's acting credentials are overwhelmingly theatre-oriented they are sprinkled with television, including London's Burning and most recently the BBC's Down to Earth.

But she prefers stage to celluloid. "There's nothing like live theatre. When you are filming you are going 'cut' all the time. You can't really get into the character, you just deliver the lines," she says.

"With theatre you have a live audience in front of you and the adrenaline is running all the time."

That said she would not mind more TV - perhaps a soap. "I would much rather be in Coronation Street than Eastenders, which is a bit depressing and mopey. Corrie's a bit more upbeat," she says, before quickly adding, "Although if I was offered a part in Eastenders I would jump it."

But she is quite reconciled to a career without Hollywood. "I can't see that happening and apart from the money I think I've always preferred quality work," she says.

Now 35 she is beginning to reap more character-driven roles, the sort actresses like Julie Walters, one of her favourites, might play.

"I've been sort of typecast playing a lot of tarts with hearts and prostitutes but as you get older you get to play old bats and grieving mums. They've just got a bit more experience and are more interesting characters to get into," says Mandy.

She has just finished appearing as Queenie Bond in Searchlights Over Bemmy at the Tobacco Factory doing seven performances a week.

The run allowed her to be at home with father Pat and mum Margaret for the first time since striking out as a budding young 18-year-old thespian.

Relishing it, she hopes to persuade her partner, also an actor, of the merits of making a life out West

"It's lovely to be home, to be near my family," she says, primping her hair done 40s style especially for the play by Auntie Angela who runs Nailsworth hairdressers Angelique.

"I have lived away almost as long as I have lived here, sadly. You come back and a lot of friends now are very settled, married with children and houses and that is when you think, 'come on girl, got to catch up'."