Survivors' Freema: 'Sci fi became my comfort zone'

18/11/2008 - 11:52

Doctor Who star Freema Agyeman says her career was just OK until she was cast as The Doctor's assistant. Since then, sci-fi has become her bread and butter.

Her latest role, in new BBC1 thriller Survivors, sees her back in sci-fi territory. She plays Jenny, a primary school teacher who battles to get her flatmate Patricia to hospital when the deadly virus strikes.

"You could call Survivors sci-fi, but first and foremost it's a very powerful human drama," she says. "It's very raw and it feels real. People will watch it and imagine how they might react in the same situation. Do we know ourselves well enough to know how we would handle it?"

For Freema, doing the right thing after Survivors meant a complete change from confronting the end of civilisation, and she got her wish when she was cast in the new BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit.

"Sci-fi was becoming my comfort zone, having done so much of it in the last couple of years, so it was great to do something totally different," says the 29-year-old actress who also starred in Torchwood.

"I still feel like I'm in the early stages of my career, and it's now about gaining as much experience as possible by doing as many different things as I can.

"I owe a lot to Doctor Who. Before it, I was doing OK, but then it came along and, I guess, turned me into a household name and took my career to a whole new level."

Survivors premieres on BBC1 on Sunday, November 23