Denise Van Outen tackles her spider phobia for screen

London: `Essex Girl` star Denise Van Outen has faced up to her fear of spiders by handling a tarantula for a part in a short film.

She posed with the eight-legged creature as she tackled her spider phobia. Van Outen helped to calm her fears with a 3D film of spiders created by Sky as an arachnophobia therapy. The film is being shown at Liverpool``s BugWorld Experience in the build up to the consumer launch of Sky 3D on October 1. A range of spiders - from domestic and wild bugs, to nasties such as false widows and tarantulas - was filmed, with narration by actor Ralf Little, who is himself no fan of creepy crawlies. Van Outen handled a Chilean rose tarantula after watching the film. "I have never been good with spiders - I``m the stand-on-the-bed-screaming type," the Mirror quoted Outen as saying. "At times I felt like the spiders were crawling all around me and that I could almost touch them. "I came out a far braver and calmer lady and was even prepared to hold a spider afterwards," she said. ANI