Let's have the basics: name, age, married, children, where do you live, favourite CD?
Gia Michele Milinovich. Milinovich is Yugoslavian – the name is Serbian, but my great-grandfather was from Croatia. Gia is Italian – two of my great-grandparents were from Turin. I'm a total mongrel; along with Yugoslavian and Italian, I'm Lichtensteinian, French Canadian and Chippewa Indian.
I just got married in December to Dr Brian Cox. And yes, we're very happy!
I live in Brixton with my 7-year-old son, and my husband lives in Saddleworth just outside Manchester. We spent ages before we got married trying to sort out where we were going to live – he's an unreconstructed northerner and I'm a total Londoner. Once we stopped trying to change things and decided to stay in our respective homes we got married right away!
My favorite CD? I'm living in the future, mate. I've got thousands of MP3s on my iPod – I'm well into Martina Topely-Bird at the moment. The last CD I bought was yesterday actually – three new four-song EP CDs from Ben Folds: The Bens, Sunny 16 and Speed Graphic at his site www.attackedbyplastic.com
What was your last job before Demolition Day?
I've been developing and writing TV programmes with various companies and producing and designing websites (I'm a total geek), in fact a couple years ago I produced one for Channel 4, Comedy Circuit
Your favourite moment on the show?
Working with Ed. It sounds trite, but Ed and I got along extremely well and every day was a joy working with him. We were away filming for two months; both of us have partners and children and it was very hard being away from them. If we hadn't got on as well as we did, it could have been a real disaster as we were filming in the middle of nowhere and were with one another from the moment we woke up in the morning until we went to bed at night. We rode the train up together every Monday, had every meal together, watched films after work together. We really enjoyed one another's company.
During the day we made sure we had a fantastic time. We were constantly trying to make one another laugh and mess up our links. He'd stick his foot out in front of me to make me trip at the start of a walking piece to camera, I'd squeeze his bum in a close-up. We were like two tearaway kids up to no good all the time.
And the lowest point?
The weather. It was mainly freezing cold and I had to wear layer upon layer of clothes – three pairs of socks, long underwear and leg warmers and a thermal top under my clothes – not a very good look on TV. The final was filmed in the middle of a storm. Not fun.
Have you ever demolished anything?
I get very excited during the demolitions on the programme – a little too excited perhaps. I think the programme is like when you're a kid sitting on the beach and spend hours and hours building a huge sand castle, taking your time making turrets and moats, then at the end of the day you just jump all over it madly and destroy it. I have had a secret desire to take a sledgehammer and destroy a PC.
What makes a good Demolition Day team?
All the teams were very different, but I'd say the teams that worked the best had lots of ideas between them, but had one leader who was in control and made the final decisions. And a demolition guy who knew exactly what to do.
Were there any behind-the-scenes disasters?
There wasn't anything really terrible that happened behind-the-scenes – at least nothing Ed and I were privy to. The biggest disaster for Ed and me was when we had to do something like 40 takes on a piece to camera because we couldn't stop laughing.
Top breakfast – bacon butty or croissant?
I'm a post-ironic vegetarian so it'd have to be the croissant.
What was your favourite challenge?
I particularly enjoyed the multi-storey car park. It was such a huge structure they had to build and the test was unbelieveable. In fact, immediately after the first team's structure was tested, there was stunned silence across the whole site and then a massive f*****g h**l! from everyone there. Very cool.
Go on, give us some DD gossip.
Ed wore my underwear throughout the multi-storey carpark episode! It was white silk ... long underwear.
If money was no object, how would you spend your perfect weekend?
I'd go to a spa and be pampered. After two months on a building site wearing steel toecap boots and walking through mud every day, I really need some pampering.
If your house was being demolished, what would you save?
I'd go for my Apple Mac G4 15-inch Powerbook. I love my computer. It's got everything I need and want on it. And then if there was time, I'd get the San San Kudo sake set Brian and I used at our wedding.
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