Former Ally McBeal actress, Portia de Rossi, has admitted that she was very nervous at the prospect of playing a lesbian in the US drama, Nip Tuck.

She is quoted as saying: “I am a lesbian playing a lesbian. But she’s a different woman than I am, so the most surprising thing is how emotional it’s been for me.”

“I had that one moment of, ‘Does this mean I’ll be typecast as a lesbian?’”

However her co star her co-star Joely Richardson had no such reservations.

She said: “I think playing a lesbian turns men on. When my character Julia was the boring, married housewife, always chopping vegetables, people were sweet and lovely.

“But now I’m playing her as a sexy bitch with a big padded bra and a short skirt, I get a very different reaction.

“I think men respond to the sexiness of two women being together.”