The Sex Education star on the perils of social media, playing Emily Brontë, and her new Disney whodunnit with French and Saunders

When the trailer came out, it felt really Hollywood, which makes me laugh. I was like: ‘Ah, OK. This is quite a big deal.’” Emma Mackey spent the last few months of 2019 filming Death on the Nile, the second of Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot adaptations. It’s a big-budget, big-name Disney extravaganza, and for Mackey, who turns 25 on Monday, it marks a first dip into blockbuster waters.

“I’d never really had that experience of walking into a studio before, where the sets were all built, and the costumes were tailored to my body, and I had a wig, and it was just … ” She trails off, lost for words. “I clearly can’t talk about it!” she says, laughing. “It completely blows my mind, still.” She does an impression of a 1930s ingenue. “‘It felt like a movie! A proper movie!’ Which is a good sign, I guess.”

The star of Years and Years and The Haunting of Bly Manor reflects on coming out as lesbian to her mum, facing racism at drama school and the progress – or not – of the Black Lives Movement

When T’Nia Miller first told her mother that she was dating a woman, she explained to her mum that she wasn’t there to see her have sex with men, so this was no different. “It’s just about me having really good friendships and beauty in my life,” she recalls saying. “That was it. We never had more of a conversation than that. If she had any issues, they were hers to deal with, not mine. She knew that. She’s a very educated, very well-read woman. For her, coming to terms with it was easy.”

The east-London born actor is telling me this story over the phone as she walks her dog (she forgot about the interview and her seven-month-old pomeranian, Dilhi, needed his daily steps) because she’s taking part in the #YoungerMe campaign, an initiative by the LGBTQ+ young persons organisation Just Like Us, which asks how LGBTQ+ inclusive education would have helped older queer people when they were in school.