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Ah! Remember poor old Lavinia Swire in Downton Abbey? She was all set to marry that handsome Matthew Crawley – thwarting his love affair with his cousin Mary – when she conveniently died of Spanish flu and her fickle fiancé inherited all her family’s money. 

The cash-strapped aristocrats of Downton Abbey were thus saved from a life of poverty or – almost as bad – having to get a job. Shudder.

‘Poor Lavinia!’ laughs Zoe Boyle, the actress who played her. ‘She was horrendously treated. She was a saint really. And it was all very convenient when Matthew inherited that money.’

Zoe, who is a big fan of Downton Abbey, says that being bumped off in the period drama changed her acting career for the better 

Still, Zoe didn’t mind too much that her character was bumped off; like the rest of the nation she was enamoured by the romance between sensible Matthew, played by Dan Stevens, and cold-fish Mary (Michelle Dockery). ‘I was such a big fan of the show before I got the part so when I found out who I was going to be I was a bit horrified,’ she adds.

Downton fans will be delighted to hear that Dan Stevens was as gallant as his character and made Zoe feel at home. ‘The dinner scenes were the most daunting things once I got on the set but Dan Stevens helped calm me down. He really helped me feel part of the team.

‘I was quite happy with the way the storyline played out. Lavinia had some nice qualities and she was disposed of very conveniently so it all worked out well for the good of the show.’

Zoe played the tragic Lavinia Swire who was set to marry Matthew Crawley – thwarting his love affair with his cousin Mary – when she died of Spanish flu

For Zoe, who lives in London, being in the drama had its own silver lining. ‘Downton changed everything for me massively,’ she says. ‘I loved the show so much and couldn’t even believe I had been asked to audition for it. It’s surreal being in something like that when you know all the people and their work.

‘It was an amazing job to shoot but the aftermath was so weird because people loved it so much. In America it was completely over the top. I’d go for auditions and the producers would say, “Lavinia! Oh my God! You’re here! You’re alive!” They were so excitable about it and there’s something incredible about that. The impact it had was massive. To be in something like that, a show which captured the whole world, was utterly amazing.’

A self-confessed ‘posh girl’, she was brought up in the north London luvvie haven of Hampstead – her mother was a ballerina, her father a barrister. Zoe, 27, admits that period drama was one of the reasons she went into acting.

Zoe took part in sixties medical drama Breathless as Jean Meecher 

‘It started when I was eight and a very ambitious teacher cast me as Hamlet – a truncated version of Hamlet,’ she laughs. ‘I fell in love with drama, and when Pride And Prejudice was on TV I really wanted to be in something like that; all the costumes and the houses.’

Her mother tried to put her off pursuing a career in acting, knowing how tough the industry was. ‘She begged, “please don’t go into acting, it’s a nightmare, please don’t do it”. But my dad told me to follow my dreams; I think he’d had aspirations to be a musician.’

She attended the Central School of Speech & Drama but although she learned a lot, she admits she is still stung by some of the treatment she got there. ‘They like to break you down and I think it’s wrong when you’re vulnerable as a student,’ she says. ‘I’ll never forget a tutorial after I’d done a scene as the nun Isabella in Measure For Measure. My tutor said, “You really are cold, aren’t you?” And I said, “What do you mean? As Isabella or as a person?” And he said, “Both”. I burst into tears and he said, “That’s what we want.” He wanted to see me as a weeping mess, a blubbing girl. He was thrilled with himself.’

Her first job out of drama school was in an RSC production of King Lear, with Ian McKellen as the lead – she was understudy to Cordelia. ‘Oh my gosh, I was totally in love with Ian,’ she says. ‘It was like working with God. I couldn’t speak to him for about three months; I was so completely star struck.’

But, like every actress, she has also seen lean times. ‘When I first started I was riddled with insecurity, I thought it was never going to work, that it was just a pipe dream. Being out of work can zap your confidence and I thought about doing a law conversion course. It’s only now that I feel brave enough to enjoy my work, and to be more playful with it.’

For a long time people mistook her for Nicole Kidman or Amy Adams. ‘People tell me I look like Nicole Kidman a lot,’ she reveals. ‘I was once in a sushi restaurant and the whole kitchen came out to have their photo taken with me. I had no idea who they thought it was. I said, “Who do you think I am?” And they said, “You’re an actress, right?” And I said, “Yes, but, erm.” I just went with it. I think people see the red hair and think they know who you are.’

When she finished on Downton she was expecting lots of corset roles. Instead, her first job was a pilot of the US version of British women’s prison drama Bad Girls. She then did a few shows based in the 1960s – ITV medical drama Breathless, with Jack Davenport, and, in the US, The Astronaut Wives Club, which told the story of the partners of America’s first men in space – but is now back in the modern age with her first comedy, Witless.

She plays the uptight Rhona, who’s about to tell her flatmate Leanne (Bafta-nominated Him & Her star Kerry Howard, sister of comic Russell Howard) to move out when they see a gangland shooting and end up having to go into a witness protection programme.

‘I loved the scripts; I just thought they were hysterical,’ she says. ‘I’d never been brave enough to do comedy before but I was excited by the challenge and knowing it was really good writing.’

A sort of The Wrong Mans meets Thelma & Louise, the pair get into scrapes as they try and remember their new names and stay away from some gun-toting teenage gang members who are trying to find them. ‘There’s an art to comedy that I’ve had to learn,’ says Zoe. ‘It requires a mastery of timing and inflection and it’s very technical. It’s been a real lesson watching Kerry work. It’s all about confidence and not being scared to fall flat on your face. It’s taken me a while but I think I have that confidence now. I’m freer.’

Witless will be on BBC3, available on the BBC iPlayer, from Friday at 6pm.