'I think after this people will bike to work' Nightsleeper star Alexandra Roach lifts lid on the BBC thriller set on a Glasgow to London train

It’s a nightmare scenario - you’re on a sleeper train from Glasgow to London that is hijacked by cyberhackers and is speeding driverless through the night, in danger of crashing at any moment.

“Now, every time I board a train, I think what if?” says Alexandra Roach, star of new BBC One six episode thriller Nightsleeper.

“I know that’s just my actor brain thinking ‘oh gosh, imagine!’. The other day when there was that worldwide hacking the cast were texting each other saying ‘have you seen the news?’ I think that’s the exciting element of Nightsleeper. There’s a fear because we don’t know what the cyberworld is capable of, we don't really understand it, and when the train starts moving on its own, it’s almost a sci-fi moment, and really chilling.

Alexandra Roach as Abby in BBC One's Nightsleeper. Pic: BBC

“I think after this people will bike to work,” she laughs.

Roach takes on the leading role of cyber security expert Abby, alongside off-duty cop Joe, played by Joe Cole (Skins, Peaky Blinders, Gangs of London) on the series from BAFTA award-winning writer Nick Leather (The Control Room, Mother’s Day).

Made in Scotland, it has a mainly Scottish cast and crew, including James Cosmo, Alex Ferns, Sharon Small, Sharon Rooney and David Threlfall.

Roach is well known for TV roles in The Light in the Hall, Men Up, Killing Eve, Black Mirror, No Offence and Hunderby, after starting out while still a teenager in Welsh soap Pobol Y Cwm and heading for RADA before landing film roles as the young Margaret Thatcher in Iron Lady alongside Meryl Streep and Olivia Colman and in Anna Karenina with Keira Knightley and Jude Law. The Welsh actor is also a co-founder of Yes Mate, a company that writes and produces both original and commissioned ideas for Film and TV.

Alexandra Roach fighting back against cyber criminals who have hackjacked a train in BBC's Nightsleeper. Pic: BBC

Shot in real time, making it ideal for bingeing, Nightsleeper toggles between the cast on the runaway hackjacked train hurtling south and a cyber security control centre in London, with Abby (Roach) and Joe (Cole), who have never met, in intermittent phone contact in a bid to beat the hackers and avoid disaster.

Last time we spoke Roach had told me she wanted ‘to shock the audience a bit, take them on a journey’ which seems prescient in the light of her new role.

“Well, it’s quite a journey, this one,” she says and laughs. It’s a fast-paced thriller about the nightsleeper train leaving Glasgow on its way to London and the passengers find a hacking device. So it’s about a guy on the train working with me to try and stop the train and save the people on board before it heads to who knows where and what.”

“Because we all know trains so well we can really easily imagine this happening. That’s the chilling aspect, that this really could happen and that’s what makes it unnerving and also thrilling.”

Welsh actor Alexandra Roach is well known for TV roles in The Light in the Hall, Men Up, Killing Eve and Black Mirror,after playing a young Margaret Thatcher in Iron Lady alongside Meryl Streep and Olivia Colman. Pic: Photographer: Craig Gibson, Styling: Cassandra Walker, Make-up: Min Sandhu, Hair: Chad Maxwell, Clothing credits: Suit – Jacq

What was it that attracted Roach to the part of Abby?

“My reaction was quite rare compared to how it normally is when I read scripts,” she says. “I had a real, visceral feeling that I needed to be the voice of this character. I haven’t had that before and I’ve been acting for over 20 years now. But I knew her instantly. I could hear her, see her. With other parts it takes research and that’s how the character comes alive but with her I just knew her, and felt I needed to be the voice of her.

“I think what I loved is she has a real rebel quality and she also comes from South Wales. She was headhunted by the cyber world after she hacks into the system as a teenage hacker and moves from Swansea to London and works her way up in this government agency of cyber security. This world is her life. She doesn’t really know who she is beyond computers, and I think what’s beautiful is that on the journey over these episodes trying to save the train and the people on it, she finds out who she is and what she’s capable of. I really liked the vulnerability in that. She has great confidence and skill but also has a real human quality of self-doubt and anxiety and I really enjoyed playing both sides of that.”

For 37-year-old Roach the character of Abby came along at just the right time.

Alex Roach stars as a cyber security expert in BBC's Nightsleeper. Pic: Photographer: Craig Gibson, Styling: Cassandra Walker, Make-up: Min Sandhu, Hair: Chad Maxwell, Clothing credits: Suit – Jacq

“I think there are many echoes between my journey and Abby’s, and where I am in my life and career. I feel like she’s made me braver and more resilient and instinctive, or maybe she reminded me that I had all of that anyway. It felt like I was meeting her at exactly the right moment, when I needed her to come into my life and teach me something.

“I love how risky she is, and rebellious and spiky. I enjoyed how she enjoys the pressure of this big situation and rising to that because I definitely felt that as an actor. I’ve been doing this for 20 years but never led a BBC One prime time drama before, so there was an element of thinking can I do this? I thought, hang on, she must be feeling exactly how I’m feeling, being given this opportunity and seeing if she’ll be able to carry it off. Whatever happens with the show, I’ll always have that.”

“She’s definitely made me more truthful to myself and braver, more in tune with myself. I think sometimes we lose that as life happens, the instinct gets lost, but she allowed me to tap back into that.”

What’s refreshing about Nighsleeper is how it bucks the outmoded stereotype of the computer geek, as Abby is far from a bedroom keyboard warrior.

“She’s smart and capable but also relatable and not socially awkward and really uses that to her advantage in getting people to do what she needs them to do. She can also think outside of the box and is always one step ahead. She’s instinctive, can sense if there’s something wrong and I think that’s maybe a lesson for all of us.”

Is Roach good with computers and technology?

“God no. Not at all,” she says. “I didn’t really understand anything about this industry so I listened to podcasts, trying to understand the cyber security aspect, the hacker community. One of the things that unlocked Abby for me is how much of a male dominated world that still is and the resilience she had to have as a girl from a working class background to work her way up in a government agency in the middle of London. That takes a lot of grit.”

One of the big themes of Nightsleeper is trust, with 12 strangers on the train, all with their own secrets.

“That element of trust is really important. There’s an instant kind of trust between Joe and Abby, that solidifies their relationship for the whole series. Because this train is hurtling towards its final destination and it seems so chaotic, in those moments between Abby and Joe that are quiet and intimate and she can just hear his voice, they decide to trust each other and that trust is tested as the series goes on. I think that trust is the anchor for the show. It’s rare these days that we just hear a voice. It’s always screens, so that felt really intimate and vulnerable and gives a bit of calm in all of the noise of what’s going on.”

One of the things Roach enjoyed most about filming Nighsleeper was living and working in Glasgow where the series was made.

“All the crew and most of the cast on the train are Scottish. I’ll never forget walking into this warehouse in Finnieston where they’d modelled the real cybersecurity centre in London, created this whole world. We all as a big group were having such good fun and I felt everyone was supportive and it just made coming to work an absolute pleasure.

“And because it’s set in real time we were in the same costumes for the whole five and a half months. Our team were really tight because we were always together with the sole purpose of trying to stop the train, so it became a bit of a pressure cooker environment.

“I moved my whole family up for the six months of filming and lived two minutes away from the studio and we immersed ourselves in life in Glasgow. I love Glasgow. I love Scotland. One of the best holidays we’ve had is hiring a camper van and driving from Bristol where I live all the way up when my daughter was a tiny baby. There’s something really familiar for me, being in Scotland, as a Welsh person, that Celtic link. It feels very familiar and comfortable and I really enjoy the people and the characters I meet.”

As well as Nightsleeper Roach has just finished filming Lazarus, written by Harlan Coben and Daniel Brocklehurst, with Sam Claflin and Bill NIghy for Amazon TV.

“It’s about a guy who comes back to the family after the dad has died, and it’s his unravelling of his past and at the same time there’s a cold case of murders that has happened in their town. My character Jenna, his sister, is very spiritual and calm, a tarot reader and into astrology, has a very different energy to Abby from Nightsleeper. As the series unfolds, secrets come out about her and it all starts to unravel for them as a family. I’ve really enjoyed playing somebody that’s so different to Abby and it’s been fun.”

Roach has done thrillers, comedy, sci-fi, a soap, TV and feature films, and is also a co-founder of Yes Mate, a company that writes and produces both original and commissioned ideas for Film and TV, so what hasn’t she done yet that she’d like to?

“I look back on my career and I’m really proud of all the different genres and characters I’ve played. Who knows what’s next. I’m really enjoying writing my own work at the minute and I’m putting a lot of energy into that when I’m not working, so hopefully that’s something I can step into next. And I’d love to step into directing. It feels like I’ve done my time. I’ve worked with a lot of people but now I maybe want to step behind the camera, be on the other side of things.”

Can she tell us about the work she’s writing?

“I’ve got a few projects I’m working on, but I’m not going to say at the minute because it’s very early stages.”

Over more than two decades as an actor Roach has worked with many well known actors including Joanna Scanlan, Iwan Rheon, Timothy Spall, Meryl Streep. What has she learnt from them and what does she think she’s taught them?

“I think as an actor I’m always learning and when I’m on set I really like watching how other actors behave, what their methods are. Because mine keeps changing as I’m getting older and for each character it becomes very different.

“I was so young when I worked with Meryl Streep on Iron Lady that it made a lasting impression on me. Seeing how comfortable she was, how confident, how relatable, and kind, was really inspiring, looking at someone of that calibre conduct herself in that way on set. She was having fun as well. I would go in on my days off and watch her from behind the camera because I wanted to see how it was with her. It stayed with me throughout my whole career. I’ve been so lucky to work with top, top actors, and I do pick stuff up from them.

“So for Nightsleeper, I haven’t led a show of this level before so from watching actors around me that have led shows I’ve taken what I’ve learnt and put that into practice in being number one on the call sheet and stepping into this new area of my career. I’ve tried to be confident with that, and kind.

“And I’ve no idea what they get from me.”

Did she stay in touch with Meryl Streep?

“I didn’t get her number, no,” she laughs.

What would Roach’s own advice be to her younger self?

“This summer I did a play, Never Have I Ever, and I was nervous and had a picture of me as a teenager when I was just starting acting, pinned up in my dressing room and I would talk to her, say ‘come on!’. There was something healing about taking your younger self on stage and letting her enjoy it.

“I don’t know if I’d have any advice for my younger self, but maybe just what would she say to me now that I’m leading a BBC One show, ‘enjoy this’.

“Because you never know how long it’s going to last. This industry can be so precarious, with its ups and downs, and it’s taken me years to get to this position. Now she can come along on this ride with me and that feels good.”

Alexandra Roach stars in BBC One’s Nightsleeper. All episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer from 6am on Sunday 15 September, and airing on BBC One every Sunday and Monday for three weeks, from that night at 9pm.