Samantha has a role for all ages

Samantha Bond says identifying her fan base is a bit like playing the Generation Game.

The roles that make people stop, stare or come up for a chat depends on your gender and your age.

Super-busy Samantha, 53, has been everything from a Bond star in the Pierce Brosnan era to a part of the

phenomena that is Downton Abbey to a kids’ favourite.

“It depends on various things,” says Samantha as she settles down for a catch-up with The Sunday Post in London.

“Most of the Downton people who recognise me are women. Then there’s a generation of men now in their mid-30s to whom I’ll always be Miss Moneypenny.

“There are teenagers who are addicted to Outnumbered (she had a hilarious turn as perennial hippy chick Auntie Angela).

“And then there’s a whole other generation of little people who know me as Mrs Wormwood, the character I played in the Doctor Who spin-off the Sarah-Jane Adventures.”

Samantha chuckles as she recalls how several of that youngest age group were among the suddenly star-struck extras in her latest telly project Home Fires (ITV tonight at 9pm).

The six-part drama follows a group of women in a rural Cheshire community who, against the backdrop of the Second World War, find themselves thrown together in the Great Paxford Women’s Institute.

And Samantha, who is joined by an impressive, largely female cast including Francesca Annis and Ruth Gemmell, is fired up and impassioned by the wartime role of the WI.

Mention the jam-making image which she admits makes people smile and she tells of a moving speech her character makes about the first casualty of the First World War being a merchant seaman.

“The Merchant Navy were travelling round the coast distributing food and if the women could preserve fruit it would help reduce them doing that,” she explains.

“So it was a very practical measure. And it was the WI who’d know of spare ground for growing veg, which houses could take evacuees, where railings could be melted down and it was often them who’d create air raid shelters.

“It was also them who started the movement of writing to friendless soldiers at the front who didn’t have family.

“I didn’t know very much about the Women’s Institute before we started, but it’s kind of amazing really.”

Samantha plays Frances, the heart and soul of the village, and it’s just another varied character for the Royal Shakespeare actress who mixes screen appearances with regularly treading the boards in acclaimed stage plays.

In fact, she’s often doing both, particularly when filming her role as Lady Rosamund in Downton.

“You finish in the theatre and a car will be waiting,” she says in explanation of her crazy schedule. “I’ll have my sandwich and glass of wine while learning my Downton lines for the next day.

“I’ll get to a very dark hotel and quietly get ready for bed at about midnight. Then a car will come at 6am and it starts all over again.

“It’s very tiring but fun in a weird way. I like to be busy.”

Downton, of course, has become more than a drama. It’s a global sensation that has catapulted its young leads to Hollywood fame.

“All of us are surprised at the scale of it but I’m not surprised at its success,” confides Samantha.

“My character came in in the last episode of series one and by the time I got on the set you could almost smell the excitement.

“I don’t think the youngsters knew, but those of us in our middle years knew it was something out of the ordinary.”

Samantha couldn’t be any more steeped in acting. Her dad was an actor, so is husband Alexander Hanson and their kids Molly and Tom have followed in the family profession.

It’s a business she admits can be “horrid” when it’s hard, so didn’t she think of dissuading them?

“Oh I did try,” she sighs. “Without success.”

She says Home Fires is a breath of fresh air.

“It’s different from anything else being made and I’d leap at the opportunity if they decided they wanted to make more.”