The Fall star Aisling Franciosi has said that her character Sister Ruth "strays pretty quickly" in the BBC's Christmas psychological thriller series Black Narcissus.
The new adaptation of Rumer Godden's iconic 1939 book and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's classic 1947 film sees Franciosi join Gemma Arterton's Sister Clodagh as they travel to Nepal to set up a branch of their order "in the remote palace of Mopu".
Once there, "its troubling mysteries awaken many forbidden desires".
"I thought it was an interesting premise and as I hadn't read the book or seen the film, I really was coming into this as though it was a new project," Dubliner Franciosi told the BBC.
"Five nuns isolated in the Himalayas in this very restricted lifestyle is a great premise for a drama. One of the first lines in the book about Sister Ruth is, 'nobody wanted Ruth in the group, she was a very uncomfortable person'!"
"I actually prefer the version of Ruth in the script, there's room there to make her a little more likeable," Franciosi continued.
"She's a great character in the novel, but playing her, from an actor's point of view, there's a little more room to have some empathy for her.
"I always find it's more interesting when you have a character who's the antihero in a way. She's a difficult character who is under a lot of strain from the isolation and having her identity stripped from her."
Of the drama that awaits viewers, Franciosi said: "Ruth as a character isn't devoted to this vocation. Ruth strays pretty quickly from that path.
"She's very quick to rage and finds it hard to control her emotions. There are periods where she just completely withdraws and doesn't speak very much; flashes of rage and uncontrollable emotions."
"I wanted her to feel like a real person and it becomes quite understandable that she ends up where she does," she added.
Black Narcissus begins on BBC One on Sunday, 27 December at 9:00pm.
