The last show you loved

I thought Mandy [BBC Two] was brilliant. I think Diane Morgan is incredibly funny, and she wrote and directed it too. You have to see them all to appreciate them – they all have a bit of like an Inside No 9 twist to them. I also go back and watch a documentary series called Sex, Drugs & Murder: Life in the Red Light Zone [BBC Three] now and again. It’s about a legal red-light zone in Leeds, and it’s better than any drama. It helps you think about your own life and how tough it is for other people, but there is still so much humour in it, too.

Your TV turn-offs

Anything like Keeping Up With the Kardashians, where people are exploiting themselves and selling a lifestyle that is unobtainable to the masses. The fans think they are getting a look inside these people’s lives, when it is potentially a load of bollocks. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be allowed, but it’s not my cup of tea.

Your TV guilty pleasure

I really like Four in a Bed. Normally, I don’t get a chance to watch any television, but a while ago, when I was pregnant and writing, I couldn’t watch any brilliant films or TV – I just needed to watch crap. Shows like that and Come Dine With Me are just mind-numbing things that make me laugh, and which made sense in my pregnancy headspace.

The show that should never have been cancelled

My first thought would be Harlots, the show that I’m in, because I think it’s brilliant and everybody that I work with on the show is really good. I’m not sure we were officially cancelled – we were only commissioned to make three series, but then someone said no, you were cancelled. It was huge in the US on Hulu so it’s been really nice that people can finally get to see it properly here.

Your favourite show when you were 10

I used to run home from school to watch something called The Gemini Factor, which was a drama about these twins who were separated at birth – it was all weird and mystical. I was obsessed with the boy in it, Charlie Creed-Miles. And then years later, I did a film with him, and then we got together and I had my daughter. How weird is that? I didn’t know I was going to be an actress, and then, age twentysomething, I met the guy in that show, fell in love and had my daughter [Esme Creed-Miles], now age 20, who plays Hanna in the Hanna series. Another weird coincidence: I was on a show called Band of Gold, and Louisa Milwood-Haigh, who was the other Gemini Factor twin, played my sister in an episode.

The show you wish you could guest star on

Horrible Histories. I love it – it’s wicked. It’s kids telly, but it’s not – I’ve learned so much from it. I love Ghosts [the adult series from the same creators], too. I love that crew, they just look like they have so much fun.

The best TV villain of all time

I think it’s me. That’s the vainest thing to say. Growing up I’d have said Dirty Den from EastEnders, but I think Alpha in The Walking Dead is just evil beyond. She’s horrible – the scripts come through and I’m like, ‘You are joking me?’ What helps me become a villain? You don’t play them as a villain, you play them as who they are, whether they’re eating a sandwich or chopping someone’s head off – you have to be the character and just embody them.

The last show that made you cry

Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle. It’s an incredibly moving series, and it’s true-to-life: there have been awful situations of people having their benefits stopped or being illegally deported, and the government illegally destroying records. Lenny Henry’s performance in that just had me sobbing.

Series one and two of Harlots are available on BBC iPlayer now