Anna Friel tells how she suffered for Odyssey role

The 38-year-old actress stars in BBC Two’s new thriller Odyssey as Sgt Odelle Ballard, who during a mission with her special ops team in North Africa, stumbles upon encrypted files that prove a major American corporation is secretly funding terrorists.

“I’ve had so many injuries on this show,” she admitted.

“First of all, I had to be pushed and fall more than 22 times, so I hurt my back. Today’s the first time I’ve worn heels in about three months. I tore my ligament, my shoulder clicked out and I suffered an abrasion of the cornea, which you’ll see in episode two.”

Anna was put through her paces by an army expert.

“I had a real Marine who came to the house every single day and took me out to Windsor Great Park and would have me moaning and literally crying with pain at points, I’m not going to lie,” she said.

“I was actually going, ‘I can’t do it’ and he’d look at me with absolute blankness and I’d be like, ‘I can’t, I’m not a soldier’ and then it was only when I stopped whinging that I thought, OK maybe I’m starting to think like a soldier.

“I was so lucky in Marrakech, where we film, that I have a garrison sergeant major who left the army in May and ran Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. He’s living with me and training me every day I can – when I’m not injured.”

The former Brookside and Pushing Daisies star, who has a daughter with David Thewlis, said she was inspired to sign up for the hardship because she could relate to the role.

“I think in extraordinary situations we find extraordinary strength and I’ve never seen a female protagonist quite like this before, someone real,” she said.

“Mothers are superheroes but she has no superpowers, she fights for her child and that was something I found I could relate to very, very much.”

Odyssey begins on BBC Two on Sunday, June 28.