Favourite TV role?

Gwen Cooper on Torchwood because she is a full-on action hero and I get to do all that fun stuff because I do all my own stunts. I also get to do great domestic scenes because I am a married woman with a baby. So I get to save the world and be the girl next door. The mix is wonderful.

Favourite role on stage?

I would say Emma [in All New People], and not just because I am doing it now, but because I have never done comedy before. This has been a whole new learning curve for me. The weird, wonderful, eccentric, wacky Emma.

Role you covet on stage?

I’d love to do Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - I do enjoy playing big, strong, feisty females. I am too old, but I would have loved to play Dorothy.

Is it different acting for stage and TV?

Yeah, massively. You have an instant reaction with a live audience and also you can stop and start throughout the day for television. And there is a beginning, middle and end every night with stage, but television can spread over weeks, months. 

Your acting technique has to change. For TV, an in breath can be too big, you have got to watch how many winks you do, you have to keep everything really small. On a stage you have to make sure people at the back can see you, it has to be big.

TV role you covet?

Sherlock – it is really hot. I also love Upstairs Downstairs. I am proud it gets made in Cardiff.

Have you ever got the giggles while performing?

Yes, all the time - I just think of death.

Eve Myles is playing Emma in All New People at the Duke of York's Theatre.

See pictures and interviews with Britain's leading actors - including Joseph Mawle, Russell Tovey, Eve Myles, Celia Imrie, Mackenzie Crook, Anne-Marie Duff, Jessica Raine, Kara Tointon, Tom Chambers, Ben Miller and many more - in Radio Times magazine's fantastic Olivier Awards special! Also in the new issue: Paul Weller, Jools Holland, Pamela Stephenson, Mary Beard, Clare Balding, Two Greedy Italians and Dara O Briain. In shops now.