Bradford actress Natalie Anderson filmed harrowing scenes as a kidnap victim for her latest role in crime drama Wire in the Blood, on TV tonight.

It's a far cry from her role as flirty Nurse Stella Davenport in The Royal, ITV1's nostalgic medical drama partly filmed in Bradford.

Natalie, from Idle, appears in tonight's episode of Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green as forensic psychologist Dr Tony Hill. Her character, a young woman called Joanne, is lured to meet a bondage-loving serial killer over the internet.

"It's a very dark storyline and the scenes were harrowing to film," said Natalie, 24. "Joanne works at an accountants, she's very shy but on the flip side she's into S&M and she spends her time in the office surfing internet chat rooms.

"She meets a guy who promises her everything but then she's held captive. It begins quite sensually, but turns nasty. I was handcuffed to a bed! I can't say too much, but it's not very nice."

Natalie filmed the scenes in Newcastle earlier this year.

"It was cold and dark, which added to the bleak atmosphere," she said. "Robson Green was lovely, he came up to me on my last day of filming and said I'd done some great work.

"Audiences are used to seeing me as a bubbly nurse but in Wire in the Blood they'll see me in a very different light."

Natalie is currently filming the next series of The Royal at St Luke's Hospital in Bradford. She said: "It's great filming there because I was born there!

"In this series Nurse Stella is really put through the mill; without giving too much away she's involved in an incident which affects her badly."

Her favourite episode of the current series, which started last Sunday, involves a trawler crashing into a wedding party on a pier.

"Usually it's the doctors and ambulance men who do the heroics so it was great to be in the thick of it," said Natalie. "I'd been begging to do my own stunts, and in the end I did do most of them, which was very exciting. I was hanging off the edge of a pier above a tank filled with water.

Natalie is also a singer/songwriter - she was a finalist on Pop Idol alongside Gareth Gates - and she's been working on an album with the producer who signed Leeds singer Corinne Bailey Rae.

"I've been so busy this year, it's been fantastic," said Natalie.

  • Wire in the Blood starts tonight on ITV1 at 9pm. The Royal is on Sundays on ITV1 at 8pm.

e-mail: emma.clayton@bradford.newsquest.co.uk