With a personality as effervescent as alcopops, Sophia is far more than a pretty face. 'I started out in modelling,' she says. 'But TV kind of found me. I don't know what got me in - I think it must be the whisky voice.' Ah yes - the voice. The word husky hardly does it justice. It sounds like the purr of a satisfied tiger, a vocal buzz so sexy it makes Mariella Frostrup sound like a hamster's voice coach. Sophia herself is mystified. 'I was too young to know when it happened, but I used to sound much higher. At some point it just broke and went husky.' And presumably the blokes love it. 'Well, yes. I'm often asked to put answerphone messages on people's mobiles.'
So alluring is her chat that she's been given the seemingly impossible job of reinvigorating the graveyard domain of television shopping. As the face of cult phenomenon Bid Up TV, she delivers a silky sales patter that has viewers tuning in in the droves for a piece of the auction. 'It's addictive TV,' she says. 'The hardest thing for me is that I want to make it entertaining. I'm there on a Friday night talking to people who have just got home from the pub. If I lose their interest, they will turn over.' Or pass out.
A quick glance at our sizzling shoot will tell you that such irresponsible channel-hopping is unlikely.
So how did she find her first Maxim experience? 'I love your magazine. I like the idea of women being in men's mags, it throws in a bit of glamour. The pictures are sexy and I'm not shy about that. There is a fine line between people seeing you like that and believing it yourself. You should be proud if you're sexy. What woman doesn't want to be sexy? We all get on heat sometimes.'
See more of Sophia at www.thinksophia.co.uk
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