In cinemas this week: Naomie Harris relished latest challenge in Black And Blue

Playing rookie cop Alicia West in her new film was a no-brainer for Naomie Harris.

After all, the young officer at the centre of action thriller Black And Blue has a lot of qualities that the London-born Bond star admires.

She’s brave, poised in the face of danger and always willing to lend support – even when the person in need is a strong man like co-star Tyrese Gibson.

In the film, Alicia’s body-cam inadvertently captures her fellow officers murdering a drug dealer.

They chase her through the streets of New Orleans trying to get the incriminating footage, and tell all the gangs she did the killing, so not only are the corrupt cops after her but all the hoodlums too.

Alicia teams up with the only person she can trust, played by Fast And Furious star Gibson, to try to get the footage into the right hands – and stay alive.

“Alicia is fierce and capable, strong, and independent. She’s the kind of woman that I love portraying,” says the 43-year-old Harris.

“Tyrese’s character is not used to handling weapons, he’s not a trained police officer in the way that Alicia is.

“Ultimately, he is of use to her during the escape scene when they’re being chased but she definitely has the upper hand; she’s more skilled in what she’s doing.

“Isn’t it great how Tyrese threw his hat into the ring, saying that he’s down for this? That he can handle being protected by a strong woman?

“I think it speaks volumes about the kind of man he is.”

Harris hopes audiences will be proud to see a strong black female lead like Alicia on screen as, growing up, she didn’t often see those women represented in movies or on television.

“I’m a black woman and I want to represent black women in a positive light,” explains Harris, Oscar-nominated for her role in Moonlight.

“I was brought up by a single parent. She was and still is a strong, powerful, and capable woman.

“I grew up in a community of women who were like that.

“What I felt growing up is that I didn’t see that strength represented in the media. So I’ve made it my mission to play women who were like the women I knew growing up.”

The Moneypenny actor also says she learned a lot from playing Alicia. She thought she had figured out the character at first glance but filming opened her eyes to so much more.

“I start each new role thinking, ‘OK, I got this. I know what the challenge with this particular character is going to be,’” Harris says.

“And it always surprises me because it never is the thing that you think it’s going to be. I thought it was going to be her next-level toughness that was going to be the biggest challenge for me but it wasn’t, actually.

“It was her vulnerability.

“Her toughness is a mask for all the stuff that’s going on internally, that hasn’t been resolved in her own life from her childhood, like having lost her mother.

“It was that underlying vulnerability that I found difficult to play and then layer on top of that with her strength.

“I loved taking on that challenge, because it stretched me out in a way that I hadn’t been before.”

Black And Blue (15) is in cinemas from Friday October 25.