OLIVIA COLMAN’S HUSBAND has written his first TV drama, a true crime series starring his wife, and I have so many questions about this that she says she can bring him downstairs to join in if I like. Ah, the possibilities when interviewing someone over Zoom. “Eddy!” she shouts up the stairs. We carry on alone, accompanied only by one of their dogs and a child who briefly pops into the room to a big grin from mum. Colman, blessed with the friendliest, giggliest face on British telly, familiar from so many hit shows, somehow feels as if she belongs in my home, as if we are already friends. This, as we will find out, is something of a problem now she’s an international megastar.

Her fame comes not just from winning an Oscar for her role as the greedy, naughty Queen Anne in The Favourite (her viral acceptance speech began with: “Oh, it’s genuinely quite stressful. This is hilarious. Got an Oscar”). It’s also from playing our actual Queen in two series of The Crown; the wicked artist godmother in both series of Fleabag; and Sophie in Peep Show. She has also, more recently, had a further Oscar nomination for best supporting actress in The Father with Anthony Hopkins. This year she has Landscapers (the one written by her husband), as well as The Lost Daughter, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and based on Elena Ferrante’s novel, and a slew of other films ranging from period biopic The Electrical Life of Louis Wain to animated sci-fi comedy Ron’s Gone Wrong. When I ask her why she’s doing quite so