She may be down today, but actress Tanya Moodie is very up-beat about her future as she talks to Steve Pratt about roles in TV's Prime Suspect and theatre's tragic Medea, which has seen her too busy to take a honeymoon.

TANYA Moodie apologises for being caught on a down day. She's weighed down with the problems of Medea, the tragic heroine of Euripides' tragedy that's getting a makeover in a new production at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.

"You have to commit to everything she's feeling and doing. I don't want to just generalise," she says. "When you get tired and weak and frightened, you just want to go home."

The actress, born in Quebec of Jamaican parents, should be feeling happy with two major roles - one on stage, the other on TV - happening around the same time. Theatre is "my love, my passion" and she admits that sometimes, standing backstage, she thinks to herself, "I'm so lucky to be here". She's always been very confident, and unaffected by nerves. "I've just been very excited," she says. "Acting was the only thing I excelled at and I used to beat myself up about it. I used to see my glass as being half empty. As I got older I could see it was half full."

She came to London from Canada at 17 to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada). Much of her work has been on stage so the Prime Suspect role on ITV1 is a bit of a departure.

Moodie plays DC Lorna Greaves, one of Jane Tennyson's murder squad of detectives. She was bowled over by star Helen Mirren. "She's a really terrific actress, I learnt so much from her," she says. "She ups the stakes for everyone. She's such a good person. She appears like a nice person because she is."

Moodie spent a day with a female DC to prepare for her role. "That was very interesting. They're so passionately committed to their work. I've never encountered anything like it, even in the acting profession. If you're an actor you can get away with not being committed. Police officers have to commit to what they do. I learnt so much."

The story revolves around the murder of a young girl and involves many issues that she feels are pertinent to the times - asylum seekers, nationality, racism in the police force and discrimination against professionals who have children.

"My character has two young kids and a house husband. She's completely ambitious and feels victimised by Helen Mirren's character because she's done her best to do the job and Jane Tennyson says it's not good enough." Medea is, of course, totally different. Director Femi Elufowoju Jr's production mixes theatre traditons from Nigeria with those of ancient Greece, using Alistair Elliot's adaptation.

"The translation is very beautiful. He's made it very accessible and the language is bordering on being colloquial, but he's a poet so there's still a lot being written in blank verse. It's very conversational," explains Moodie.

The story has Medea helping her lover Jason steal the golden fleece, deceiving her family and giving up her homeland. In Greece, when Jason abandons her for a more politically advantageous marriage, Medea seeks terrible revenge. "The play is boiled down to its bare essentials - Jason and Medea are having a very bad domestic," she says. She previously performed in Greek tragedy in Antigone as part of The Oedipus plays staged at the National Theatre, directed by Peter Hall. She has also worked in Paris in The Suit, performing in French, for theatre legend Peter Brook.

"Overall, that was life-changing. But there's good and bad in everything. He has a lot of trust in people," she says. "You have to allow yourself to work on a hard playing field. There are a lot of things he takes for granted and sees things in a particular way. In all of Europe, they approach theatre and arts in a different way to England."

It's Medea that's occupying her thoughts at present. The character's journey, she says, is so varied and destroys her humanity. She's also aware of the pitfalls of such a misery-filled tale. "No one wants to sit in the theatre for two-and-a-half hours hearing a woman scream and shout and kill her children," she says.

Moodie tries to keep focused on where she wants to be in ten, 20, 30 years time as a way of keeping sane in the acting profession. "I set a goal for when I reach 92 the other day," she says.

Her immediate goal, once Medea is over, is to take a belated honeymoon with her husband, a yoga teacher, whom she married a year ago. Work has prevented them having a proper break until now. Then she's returning to Paris for another season in The Suit.

* Prime Suspect is on ITV1 on Sunday and Monday.

* Medea is at West Yorkshire Playhouse from November 14 to December 13. Tickets 0113 213 7700

Published: 06/11/2003