TV HIGHLIGHTS The only way I could protect my granny was to play her myself... R

UTH WILSON was 15 when she learned her family had an incredible secret. After she found a photo of her grandfather, whom she had never met, in a chest of drawers, she discovered he had been a serial bigamist.

After he died suddenly of a heart attack in the 1960s, her grandmother Alison found out that she was not the only Mrs Wilson, and her two sons were not his only children.

“My granny gave my dad and my uncle a memoir she had written,” says Ruth, who is now 36.

“I think she invited them over and she asked them to read it there in front of her, in the same room, so they could all talk about it afterwards.

“They asked her a few questions, but it was just not done in those days and still lots of generations don’t really talk about these things, it’s just not asked.

“The only thing I knew about him was when I found the picture of him in my dad’s cabinet that was locked away.

“He was never on display, he wasn’t talked about, so we were encouraged not to ask The story of Ruth Wilson’s grandparents is stranger than fiction. The actress tells why she wanted to tell that story in a new BBC drama and how she tackled the challenge of playing her own grandmother questions about him.” Now the actress, best known for her roles in Luther and The Affair, is exploring the full story in new drama Mrs Wilson, in which she plays her own grandmother. “The only way I could protect her was to play her,” Ruth says with conviction. “And protection not in the way of making her a nice woman, it was actually in a way of showing all her sides, all complexities of that woman, and not being afraid to show those. “I think somebody who was playing my grandmother might feel a bit selfconscious, or a bit concerned about how they portray her, with me watching over their shoulder.

“I can’t imagine many actresses would like to do that. So I thought that would be the only way I could protect her and dig into the story the way I’d like to.”

Indeed the story doesn’t end there. Alison’s husband Alec, played in the three-part series by Game Of Thrones actor Iain Glen, was also a novelist and a spy whom Alison met while working at MI6 during the war.

“I found him fascinating, and I’m a curious person anyway, so I was just like, ‘Wow, great, our family’s not boring!’ But it’s just been incredible, and the story keeps revealing itself, it hasn’t stopped yet.” The biggest shock of all came when it turned out Alec actually had four wives, and with them a total of seven children.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a few more come out after the show airs,” Ruth says with a laugh.

“It’s amazing to have this in my family, it really is. My grandmother definitely wanted her memoir to be read.

“Whether she wanted it to be dramatised, I don’t know, but I hope