Niamh Cusack talks about her role in ITV drama Fallen Angel

Niamh Cusack talks about the incredible thriller why-dunnit Fallen Angel

Niamh plays Vanessa

Niamh Cusack has had her fill of playing nice women and jumped at the chance to play an ambitious publisher in Fallen Angel.

She says: I tend to play put-upon wives and nice girls next door so I loved the notion of playing Vanessa, someone who seemed to be a good person but who has steel underneath. Which is probably true of me as well as the character!

Niamh, who is currently starring in Ibsen’s Ghosts at The Gate Theatre in London, says of her character: Vanessa is a self-made woman, someone who has chosen not to marry until later in life as she is incredibly ambitious. I think she sees David (Charles Dance) as the perfect accessory – a good man, intellectual with a beautiful country house.

She assumes Rosie is out of the way as she is almost grown up. Her relationship with Rosie is prickly from the start but she thinks the petulance and teenage tantrums are normal; it’s easy to understand why the alarm bells didn’t start ringing sooner.

She continues: I think Vanessa is used to getting her own way and she uses men; she is a bit of a tease but not somebody who delivers. She has no idea what she’s taken on with David.

And as a publisher with her eyes firmly on the texts of a controversial poet and suspected child killer Frances Youlgreave, David’s relationship with neighbour Lady Youlgreave is a bonus.

Ive a notion that everyone is a bit mad in this drama and Vanessa isnt without her craziness for a long forgotten perverted clergyman, Frances Youlgreave. Rosie recognises this obsession and that’s the biggest trap of all for Vanessa. Its her downfall.