‘I’m fearless. I was in a boys’ rugby team’: Slow Horses’ Aimee-Ffion Edwards on playing a cocaine-snorting spy

‘I played one match for Wales then thought: I’ve done that’ … Aimee-Ffion Edwards. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

There was a moment, just before Aimee-Ffion Edwards jumped off a nightclub balcony in Slow Horses, when she had to lie to herself about what she was about to do. “It was quite hard,” says the actor. “You basically tell yourself, ‘You’re not jumping.’ Obviously, you know you’re harnessed in, but you’re also going, ‘This is mad! This is mad! This is mad!’”

She laughs. “I couldn’t feel my fingers for a second. I was like, ‘Huwwaah!’” She sucks in her breath, then says: “But there were 200 people stood there watching. You’re like, ‘Well, I gotta do it.’”