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What's been the most upsetting thing about this storyline for you?
"I think it's the fact that you can't open the papers anymore without seeing situations like Whitney's been going through. Everything's so harrowing and there are so many reports of these kind of incidents. I think the other upsetting thing is that women like Bianca are so vulnerable - the fact that men like Tony can go into a family a groom a child. I then start to think about the story we didn't see. It's just really sad that women like Bianca find themselves in such a vulnerable position as to be manipulated so quickly without knowing it."
Which scenes were the most difficult to portray?
"The confusion Bianca feels during the reveal episodes had to be the most difficult. For me, I almost didn't want to play the confusion. I just wanted Bianca to get a knife, go into protective parent mode and go straight for Tony's throat!"
In a nutshell, how does the revelation come about?
"It's Whitney's birthday and she thinks she's going away with Tony to Spain. She's getting ready for their trip, but there are all these obstacles for her to overcome, like her present from Bianca and the children. Whitney feels a huge loyalty to her family. Because Bianca's a mum who's always out working, Whitney's at home almost bringing them up as her own. As an audience, we know that Tony's going nowhere with Whitney and it's at that point she decides she's had enough and tells Bianca. At first, I think she tells Bianca to spite Tony. She doesn't realise the enormity of the situation. When Bianca goes downstairs and looks at the picture of a younger Whitney - I really didn't like that. Bianca then hears them in the bedroom talking about what's been going on. It's lucky really because they could have fallen back into his trap again."
How does Tony react?
"He tries to do the thing that these kind of people do and manipulate Bianca and say that the whole situation with Whitney's a lie."
Does Bianca blame herself for everything?
"Yeah, she does really. Because of everything that's happened, she thinks she was never a good mum in the first place."
How did you portray the 'torn' emotion that Bianca was feeling?
"That's the thing about playing the mum - nobody really thinks about the mum in these kind of situations. They think about the child, quite rightly, but there is a family around the child that's going through it all and it must be so difficult."
Does it upset Bianca when Whitney starts trying to track down her real mum?
"Yeah, it's brilliant that they've brought this part of the storyline in straight away, that Whitney's trying to find her real mum. Obviously she's so confused about who she is and what's been going on. Selfishly, Bianca feels a bit betrayed, though."
Would you like to see this storyline come to a head by going to trial?
"Yeah, it'd be really good. Surely it's got to? I haven't even thought about that, to be honest. It'd be great to see it play out in the court, how Whitney deals with the court process and how it affects the whole family."
Is it hard to believe that children and unassuming parents find themselves in these kind of situations?
"Yeah, I'm fortunate that I've never experienced anything like this in my life or in my family and I think I'm a very fortunate person in this day and age because unfortunately, when you look at the statistics from the NSPCC, too much of it goes on - and they're only the incidents we know about. What about all the undetected cases?"
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