Nightsleeper star used her own imposter syndrome

Alexandra Roach said she used her own experience of imposter syndrome to make her character "feel real"

Welsh actress Alexandra Roach said she used her own experience of imposter syndrome in her role in a new BBC thriller.

Roach, from Ammanford, Carmarthenshire, stars in Nightsleeper which sees hackers hijack a sleeper train travelling from Glasgow to London.

Speaking to Lucy Owen on Radio Wales, Roach said she wanted to use her previous experience of imposter syndrome to make her character more relatable.

"I definitely had that in my past, and I felt that was something I needed to bring to Abby to show how real and that human element to her," Roach said.

In the show, Roach plays Abby Aysgarth, the acting technical director at the National Cyber Security Centre.

She, along with an off-duty police officer Joe Roag, played by Joe Cole, must attempt to stop the high-speeding train and work out who is behind the hack.

Roach said she enjoyed bringing the character to life.

"She is amazing at what she does. She can do beautiful, wonderful things with computers.

"All of this crisis falls on her shoulders and she really enjoys the thrill of trying to hack back into this train and she's really good at what she does," she said.

Alexandra stars alongside Joe Cole in the BBC drama

During her research for the role, Roach said she learned a few things about the risks of cyber attacks.

"Before this, I didn't know anything about this world, and now I have some knowledge from playing Abby on what could happen.

"The writer, Nick Leather, wanted to know if this was even plausible. So he got three experts and asked them 'is it possible to hack into a train and drive it remotely?'

"He left them chatting for an hour, and they concluded that not only is it possible to hack into a train, drive it remotely but that the three of them [the experts] could do it.

"So it is unnerving but that's what makes it an exciting watch," she said.

Through her research, Roach said learning new cyber security related terms was like a "whole new language" to get her head around.

"These words didn't mean anything to me as Alex, but I had to really commit to it because I believe that Abby really loves her job and she knows exactly what she's doing," she said.

Roach was recently nominated for best actress in the Bafta Cymru awards for her role in the BBC drama, Men Up.

"I'm so proud of that show [Men Up] and what we all created. It was such a joy to work on, and to play that character.

"It was the first time where I've been in a read through, and I felt 'oh this feels really special," she added.

All six episodes of Nightsleeper are available to watch on BBC iPlayer. The first episode will air on BBC One later on Sunday.