Daniela's life after This Life

Does it look really bad if I smoke?' Cigarette in hand, Daniela Nardini feigns pensiveness as the photographer sets up another shot, but there's a wry sparkle in her big brown eyes. She says she doesn't smoke much, but as the sarcastic, ambitious, flirtatious, nicotine-fuelled Anna in This Life, Nardini took smoking to near fetishistic levels.

In Elephant Juice, her feature-film debut, she lights up after announcing she's pregnant. 'I do get criticism for playing characters like that,' she says later, sipping tea in the sunny studio garden. 'But the only thing I was wary about in This Life was taking Ecstasy, there was a lot of press about it at the time and my mother was upset. I felt a bit tender about doing it.'

Not so tender, however, that she could refuse the part of Daphne in Elephant Juice, also the big-screen debut for the film's scriptwriter, This Life creator Amy Jenkins. Like Anna, Daphne is sarcastic but confused, a sexually outgoing pill-popper struggling to find the right partner and her place in the big bad world. It's a typically magnetic Nardini performance - a combination of Britchick neurosis and regal Roman bearing - but the movie itself is woefully inadequate. Elephant Juice's release was delayed after unfavourable reaction to early previews (notably from Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein). Now, following Jenkins's widely panned novel HoneyMoon, its clumsy, inconclusive narrative suggests that This Life's success had much to do with the team of writers and directors assembled by veteran producer Tony Garnett after Jenkins and Elephant Juice director Sam Miller started the series.

Nardini was 29 when This Life was first screened in 1996. Before then she'd worked in theatre and had small parts in a few Scottish TV series - Taggart, Doctor Finlay. Anna made her a BAFTA-winning household name, but there have been periods of insecurity since, when she thought, 'I've had my day.' Though they rarely meet, Nardini considers Jenkins 'a mate' and says she is drawn to her writing because it deals with issues that have preoccupied her since her 19-year-old brother was killed in a traffic accident when she was just 16. 'His death opened me up to a lot of ideas, that whole "What's it all about?" thing. I still say I have three brothers - he's still a presence in my life. In Amy's work there's a lot of questioning going on - "What does this mean? What comes after all this?"'

Jenkins has made no secret of her past promiscuity and drug use, and Nardini seems to have been chosen as the actress to play out her wild-child demons. In Elephant Juice her character wanders drugged and dazed through a nightclub before a suicide attempt lands her in the emergency ward.

Was there any special research required? 'I've never been a raver - I still think of the term "disco" when I think of going out. When we were shooting in the nightclub, Sam directed me a lot because I had to be in a different space altogether. Sam obviously knew what that was like, and he was able to show me,' she laughs. But, such specific direction was an anomaly. 'Sam is an organic director. You think, "Is he directing me here or not?" He does it in a very subtle way - the atmosphere is relaxed not frightening. Some directors create a horrible environment on set.' Loyalty and a sense of security seem to be important qualities for Nardini. But she acknowledges the script's lack of narrative and admits Jenkins was 'vague' when asked to give more detail about her character. 'So I made things up for her, decided she was a jeweller, gave her a bit of a life. At first I thought they wanted me to play Jules (a role taken by French actress Emmanuelle B?art) but Daphne was more obvious. She has the destructive element that Anna had - a bit cool but insecure underneath and lonely. You can't really imagine either character having a happy family life.'

Unlike Nardini's own idyllic background. The only daughter of an Italian ice cream selling family, she grew up in the seaside town of Largs, Ayrshire. 'A lovely place where everyone looked out for you, basic nosiness really.' Summer holidays were spent with her grandparents in Tuscany and she knew early on what she wanted to be. 'I used to go and see Sophia Loren and Clark Gable with my dad and I'd cry and tell him I wanted to be an actress.'

After studying at the Royal Scottish Academy Of Drama And Music she formed a theatre group with director David McVicar. He pushed her into roles that were 'diverse, controversial and wicked'. Producer Tony Garnett, the Brit telly legend who oversaw This Life, was another influence. 'When I heard he worked with Ken Loach I was bowled over. I think he's got very good taste so I'd ask him for advice. He said don't be afraid of waiting for things, it will come to you, don't just take the first thing on offer.'

But sitting back and waiting can restrict the growth - hence Elephant Juice and recent TV drama Rough Treatment (also made with This Life's World Production team). 'I'll have to wait until they start making movies and go round and knock on their door and say, "Hey, remember me?"' she says laughing, but possibly meaning it.

It's Nardini family legend that when her grandfather first arrived on the west coast of Scotland he thought he was going to America. She's only been once - on holiday as a teenager. She says reading Barbara Leaming's Marilyn Monroe biography has put her off ever trying to make it in Tinseltown. 'Either you make a big film here and go off there or you go there on spec. I wouldn't do that - the whole idea of LA does nothing for me. I'd enjoy the weather but nothing else. I went for an interview recently with a big American director. He looked through me. I was like, "Oh well, f*** you." Going to Hollywood to beg people like that for three lines in a movie, f*** that. I wouldn't do it. I might have when I was 22, but I don't need to, it's demeaning.'