Dawn French hugged Rob Brydon before her husband during the first coronavirus lockdown.
Dawn French admits the hug meant a lot
The 'Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse' actress - whose husband Mark Bignell was a front line worker - has revealed how much it meant to embrace her co-star during filming for Sky's made-for-TV movie based on the true story of a six-year-old Roald Dahl meeting his idol Beatrix Potter.
Appearing on Rob's podcast 'Brydon &', she said: "Here was the first thing that I had done out of the lockdown.
"I've been telling people about the day that you and I had to have a hug, and what was very strange about that for me was that I had not hugged anybody - well I might have hugged my daughter - but I hadn't even really hugged my husband because my husband is a front line worker.
"And we were told that he could either move house and not live with us in the lockdown and live near work and not see us, or he could live with us but he had to be in a separate room at night and stuff like that, and we had to keep our distance for safety."
The 'Vicar of Dibley' star admitted she wanted her and Rob's hug to "go on forever".
She added: "This was when we were all very scared. Seems mad now, but anyway.
"So I hadn't hugged my own husband, and then I saw in the script it said "they hug", or whatever it said.
"And I thought, 'Oh my god, I'm going to hug Rob before I'm hugging my own husband'. And that hug meant a lot to me and I wanted it to go on forever."
Her comments come after she admitted she was envious of her comedy partner Jennifer Saunders' success with 'Absolutely Fabulous', although Dawn - who has since become a household name in her own right - was still happy for her.
She recently explained: "I got very conflicted about her massive success with 'Ab Fab'… you know when your sister does really well at something?
"You're like: 'Oh good for you, good for you… f*** you'... When you love somebody as much as I love Jennifer, the glee and the happiness and the pride overshadows any other stuff… it does."
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