Laila Rouass

Laila Rouass Biography

Laila Rouass is a British actress who has acted in Indian movies as well. She is born to an Indian mother while her father belongs to Morocco. She is best known for the television shows, Footballers' Wives (2004–2006) where she played the role of Amber Gates and Holby City (2011–12) in which she essayed Sahira Shah. She played the female lead in the controversial Indian film of late 1990s, Split Wide Open (1999) where she shared screen space with Rahul Bose, Ayesha Dharkar and Shivaji Satham. The movie was directed by Dev Benegal of English, August fame. Laila participated in the reality show, Strictly Come Dancing where she finished fourth.

Rouass was born in Stepney, London. She is an Anglo Indian as her mother hails from India. In the 1990s she worked in Indian Channel, Channel V as a VJ. She also acted in Indian movies during 1990s. She appeared in a music video for the band Colour Blind during this time. Later she moved back to UK, where she had a successful career as a TV actress. She was at her career peak during the period, 2004-2006, when she acted in a few popular TV shows - Footballers' Wives: Extra Time, Family Affairs and Hollyoaks.

She found place in FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World list in 2004 and 2006, where she reached the positions 87 and 69 respectively. Egyptologist Sarah Page in science-fiction series Primeval (2009), Maya Lahan in Spooks (2010), registrar Sahira Shah in Holby City (2011) etc are some of her popular roles later. She paired with professional dancer Anton Du Beke for seventh series of Strictly Come Dancing on BBC One which brought her to limelight. She has been associated with many Indian film projects such as City of Dreams, Senso unico, Don't Stop Dreaming, Bawander, Split Wide Open etc. She has married twice, had one daughter from second relationship and currently she is engaged to professional snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan since 2012.

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Updated: June 19, 2016