Emily's check mate

The Luzhin Defence is based on a Nabokov novel. It's about a chess grand master called Alexander Luzhin, and how he is torn apart by love and obsession.

He is in love with Natalia, a young woman from the emigre Russian aristocracy, played by me - and he is obsessed by chess, which has been his refuge against real life since he was small boy.

It's set in the late Twenties, when Luzhin, played by John Turturro, arrives at an elegant Italian lakeside resort to play a match that could make him world champion. Natalia has been "set up" by her mother, Vera, played by Geraldine James, with the charming and very suitable Comte de Stassard (Christopher Thompson), but she finds Luzhin fascinating. She breaks from parental approval to be with the highly unsuitable and eccentric Luzhin as he spins out of control.

Marleen Gorris directed and we shot in Italy - and in Budapest, for Luzhin's childhood flashbacks to turn-of-the-century St Petersburg. The lakeside hotel is the Villa Erba on the banks of Lake Como, which was actually the childhood home of director Luchino Visconti.

I have an aptitude for going down a certain path so it was a departure for me in that I'm the one watching somebody having a nervous breakdown. John and I are good friends and had worked together on Cradle Will Rock. It's like being round a whirlwind working with him and it's slightly terrifying because he's so energised and full of ideas. And then, of course, you're actually dwelling in Nabokov's imagination which is quite a strange place to be.