“I’m always thinking of the next role”

IT WAS once said of the late Sir David Frost that he had “risen without trace”. Well much the same could be said of Nicola Walker who, over the past few years, has established herself as one of the most recognisable faces on television thanks to high-profile roles in Last Tango In Halifax, The Split and Unforgotten.

In actual fact Nicola has been around since the late Nineties, with glimpse-and-you’d-miss them parts in A Dance to the Music of Time, Dalziel and Pascoe, Jonathan Creek, Pie in the Sky, and Broken News, but it is only in the past few years that this talented, unassuming actress has started consistently picking up the high-profile roles.

And it is ironic that, early on in her career, Nicola was warned by an older actress to “do as much work as you can because once you’re over 40, it really slows down”. If anything the reverse is true, and having celebrated her 50th birthday in May last year Nicola has never been busier.

The daughter of a scrap-meal merchant father and interior designer mum, Nicola was born in Stepney, in the East End of London, and went to a private