Keeley Hazell exchange Page 3 for the extra large screen: Keeley Hazell shot to fame as a Page 3 Girl and glamour model after winning a competition run by a national tabloid – but now she is turning her attention to the big screen. The 24-year-old is trying to shake off the shackles of the lads’ mag culture with which she has become synonymous and be taken seriously as an actor.
Ms Hazell, who grew up in Grove Park in south east London and went to school in Bromley, has a series of film projects in the offing. The first of which is Venus and The Sun, a short film written and produced by a number of former Tunbridge Wells schoolboys now in their late 20s.
A 20-minute reworking of Ovid’s tale of Venus and Adonis, it combines classical mythology with tabloid celebrity and is set to premiere in the town’s Assembly Hall Theatre next Friday, March 11.
Made with a budget of just £25,000, the filmmakers have managed to attract some top talent with comedy actor Will Smith, from the BBC’s political satire The Thick of It, and Ukweli Roach, who played Jay in last year’s Streetdance 3D, starring alongside Ms Hazell.
Writer and former Tunbridge Wells Boys’ Grammar student Reuben Grove’s script sees her play a fictionalised version of herself with an unexpected passion for Latin. She finds sanctuary from fame and her adoring fans in the British Library where she meets librarian and Sun reader Adam.
Asked how much of the ‘real’ Keeley Hazell is seen in the film, she told this newspaper: "I think you can see the frustrations. "In most of the film you can see parts of me, trying to get away from something and the frustration of that. "It is very personal in that way."
While Ms Hazell pursues her change of career, the production team of Venus and The Sun, which is also showing in London’s Shoreditch next week, has been busy finding a way to get it distributed and seen on a shoestring budget.
Producer Andy Brunskill, who went to school at Skinners grammar, gave up a job working as assistant to Alison Owen of Ruby Films on features including the The Other Boleyn Girl, Brick Lane and Tamara Drew, to pursue his own projects.
He added: "It’s been exhausting, but it has just been amazing, being able to be really creative and experimental when there is not a huge budget involved. "From the moment Keeley was involved and we were starting to get press it felt really different. Films like this don’t normally get any attention.
"Lots of people from my Tunbridge Wells school days are involved and we’re in it together, in creative industry helping each other make it. It is a really exciting time."