ZOMBIE KILLER GOES TO WATFORD

SaMantha Morton laughed when asked if she trains for her kick-ass role in tV drama the Walking Dead. ‘i don’t go to the lengths the male actors do,’ she said.

the award-winning star plays authoritarian alpha in the long-running U.s. drama.

‘she’s brutal and has to take tough decisions and, in the comic books, she’s superstrong and has enough energy to walk for days. i get down the gym three times a week... which is enough!’ Morton told me, adding that she doesn’t need to be in a race with male colleagues. the actress, 41, was thrilled to ‘be walking in these alpha boots, at my age, in this industry’.

this month, the oscarnominated star ( pictured) returns to Georgia to film a new series, as leader of the Whisperer survivors.

before then, however, she will complete shooting a new series of harlots, in which she and Lesley Manville play rival madams. ‘Young girls are procured and raped and murdered and my character, Margaret Wells, tries to prevent it happening. it’s very dark,’ she said, speaking from the set in Watford.

‘When i’m not working in america, i’m in Watford,’ Morton said, explaining that along with harlots, she filmed a one-hour tV film called i am nicola, part of a c4 trilogy.

she developed and co-wrote it with Dominic savage, the tV innovator who made last year’s woefully under-appreciated the Escape, with Gemma arterton and Dominic cooper.

savage made the three films with women, about women. Vicky Mcclure and Gemma chan were his other collaborators.

‘the story for i am nicola is, weirdly, very apt for today,’ Morton told me. ‘it’s about something i was aware of when i was a girl. it’s poverty, and this is about how you can have a life, a job, a partner, a flat — and, with a series of events out of your control, lose everything very quickly and end up homeless. With nothing,’ she said.

i am nicola, which was fully improvised, is about a mother who goes through such a situation; and how she survives.

Morton was in and out of foster care as a child because of the poverty in her family. ‘i see it and i’m very aware of it,’ she said, adding that something good did come out of the whole experience. ‘i used being in care in a positive way, to walk forward.’

it’s a topic she returns to in starlings, the second in a trilogy of films, about what happens to children kicked out of care. ‘they are on their own and there’s no support.

‘all the charities that supported such children are closed down, because they don’t get support,’ she said of the picture, which she hopes will get enough funding to film later this year, or next.