Alex Kingston didn't blanch at steamy love scenes

From Dr. Elizabeth Corday on ER to the gun-toting, intergalactically gallivanting adventurer-assassin- scientist River Song on Doctor Who, Alex Kingston has depicted her share of formidable characters.

She has even assayed the role of first-century British warrior queen Boudica (in the 2003 PBS drama Warrior Queen).

When the actress agreed to star on the new iteration of Upstairs Downstairs, then, the decision seemed unsurprising — even though the British soap hasn’t featured many female warriors.

Kingston plays Blanche Mottershead, a fiercely independent lesbian archaeologist, on the second season of Upstairs Downstairs, set to premiere on Sunday.

“When Blanche was described to me and it was revealed that, .?.?. along with being an eccentric and a mysterious woman, she actually is a lesbian, it became quite enticing,” Kingston, 49, said by phone.

The new version of Upstairs Downstairs picked up in the late 1930s, six years after the original series concluded. Adolf Hitler is on the rise, and the new occupant of the house, Sir Hallam Holland (Ed Stoppard), is a foreign-affairs adviser who must prepare Britain for another long war.

Kingston’s character is Hallam’s aunt, who is newly back from north Africa to attend to matters after the death of her older half sister, Maud, Lady Holland (Eileen Atkins). Blanche is as willful as Maud and anything but a traditional British woman. “We figured that Blanche always was independent,” Kingston said. “She went to Cambridge and studied archaeology and had wanted to make it in the truly male-dominated world of the explorer and archaeologists who strike out into other cultures and lands.”

Her ambitions demanded that Blanche mold herself in the image of her male counterparts in academia: “No corsets for her!” Kingston said.

Blanche finds her vocation by helping to run a foundation that sponsors Jewish children fleeing Nazi Germany.

But not all is sweetness and light at Eaton Place: Blanche discovers early in the season that her former lover, Lady Portia Alresford (Emilia Fox), is also back in England. Portia, who is married to a prominent public figure, sets tongues wagging when she publishes a thinly disguised roman a clef about her love affair with Blanche.

The London tabloids have had a feast discussing Kingston’s sex scenes with Fox — a prurient public interest that amuses Kingston.

“One is so engrossed and involved in the character, it was no different from having to do a love scene with a guy,” she said. “I’m playing the same feelings: love, passion, lust.”

Kingston, who has resumed her role in the new season of Doctor Who, expressed disappointment that Upstairs Downstairs won’t return for a third season. BBC said in April that it has no plans for the show’s return.

“There was so much more to explore with Blanche — so many possibilities,” Kingston said. “She’s such an amusing character.”