“Actually, I’m pretty good. I’m not a great sharer, I think we’ve all kept pretty tight-lipped about it, we’ve kind of had to. It’s frightening that level of responsibility, you don’t want to be the one who’s fired.” Hadn’t her years as Rose Tyler on Doctor Whotaught her the way around confidentiality clauses? “Exactly. I’m pretty well versed in hiding things.”

In Mary Shelley’s novel Victor Frankenstein creates a mate for his monster, but destroys it for fear of creating a family of little monsters. But the character of Elizabeth was immortalised by Elsa Lanchester in James Whale’s 1935 classic, The Bride of Frankenstein, emitting an unforgettable yelp when she first claps eyes on her bolt-necked groom. Piper says she has read the book but has not seen the movie. “So we could go at it fresh and free from that,” she says.

In the film, Elizabeth finds the monster repulsive. Will her Bride be more loving?

“It’s a perverse relationship I’d say, it moves around a bit. There’s a lot of feeling, but she also has a quest and she wants him on board. So she goes about that using her great tools of manipulation but whether it’s formed through genuine love I suppose you’ll have to wait and see.” Before Brona becomes the bride, Victor needs to work his alchemy – scenes which required a prosthetic body-double, painstakingly cast from Piper’s own body – and which I am introduced to in the workshop overseen by Nick Dudman, who worked his prosthetic magic on all the Harry Potter films and is responsible for moulding Benedict Cumberbatch’s hump in the upcoming BBC adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III. What was it like meeting her body body-double?

Two Penny’s worth: Rory Kinnear’s Creature with Harry Treadaway as Dr Frankenstein (Showtime)
“That was weird,” Piper admits. “That kind of had you thinking at night, ‘where is it? Who’s with it? Is it all locked up?’ Seeing yourself that way is bizarre – not something you want to fixate on.” The stuff of nightmares? “I kind of sleep like I’m dead, so no.”

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