For Scottish star, real life served as drama lessons

terrible basement filled with these fabulous drag queens who were just so interesting.”

Today, the 53-yearold Graham is applying all of her “schooling” to her latest role as a former World War II code breaker in “The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco,” which is streaming on BritBox.

As the prim Jean McBrian, she joins her wartime colleagues in adapting their keen analytic logic to solving a series of murders in San Francisco.

Growing up, Graham saw the downside of the acting profession via her mother’s work.

“I think I’d had a good grounding because I’d seen that it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, and it’s quite a tough profession,” she said. “There’s a lot of rejection and a lot of time being unemployed.

“I guess I had a good basis in reality, whereas a lot of people think they’re going to be rich and famous. And that’s not why I wanted to do it. I just wanted to tell stories, I guess.”

Graham has costarred in shows such as “Survivors,” “Shetland” and “William and Mary.”

Although she feels life experiences enrich us, the mother of two girls, ages 12 and 14, has endured more than her share of difficult ones. Her ex-husband hanged himself three years ago, and, six months before that, her best friend died suddenly.

“One minute she was there, and the next minute she wasn’t there,” Graham said. “And that really changed me. It changed me for the better because it made me live in the moment.

“It was so shocking," she continued. "She left behind two young children — one of them is my goddaughter — and that just changed everything because I realized life can change in the blink of an eye.”