Did you spend a lot of time on set while you were growing up? It added to the desperation and mounting fears that the girls were supposed to feel. It did help me to become more engrossed in the character living as she would live, experiencing the night-time hours in her life, her world and feeling the threat of daylight as we would race to finish filming before the sun came up. I definitely think that it helped with the atmosphere during those scenes. I don’t think I would say that it was challenging. Was it challenging to act largely in darkness? Or was this in a way helpful? All normal things that teenagers tend to go through, I guess. Frustration, a desire for independence, a need to be loved and taken care of. I tried to connect her deeper emotions to times where I may have felt the way she did. I found that the more I read it, the more I found out about Alma and the easier she was for me to understand. I mean, really loads of times, over and over, because for me that is how a story goes in and stays in. “Shadows” is a genre film, yet the acting is naturalistic. Which is admitting a lot because I’m dyslexic and that means I have to read slowly and steadily to be able to absorb things fully sometimes.

“Shadows” was the first film I’d received an audition for, and the first script I had ever been given to read. I just hoped I would get the chance to do what I had wanted to do for so long! I had just finished school, was free of exam hell, and felt excited, nervous and ready to start auditioning for things, and hoping that the opportunities to audition would come my way. Threapleton, who is 20, took questions from Variety about the challenges of her role as Alma, who has a fractious rapport with a mother whom she does not want to disappoint.

Long Shadows by Kate Sherwood