Vicky McClure has the shock factor

Vicky McClure has suffered for her art. As Lol, the street-smart, DM-wearing heroine of Shane Meadows'

Meadows' original film This Is England, based on his own youth as part of a gang in Eighties' Nottingham, has mutated into a sort of skinhead Forsyte Saga, with a run of TV sequels taking in the stories of all the characters. They've just filmed the '88 edition, which is set over Christmas and will tie up the loose ends before This Is England '90 draws the tale to a close with a summer of ecstasy and Paul Gascoigne's tears. McClure is sworn to secrecy as to what will happen next, but she does tell me that Lol's got a different hairdo for '88: darker, shorter. 'Back in the day, they were really creative with their hair, dyeing it from pink to blue, perming it. So I think it was good for her to have a different style, not just the blonde quiff.' She pauses and reflects wistfully. 'I did love that hair, though'

McClure, 28, is less spiky in real life - in fact, her Nottingham vowels are rather cosy - but there's a toughness to her. 'Me and Lol are a million miles apart in many ways, because I haven't experienced what she's experienced,' she says reassuringly (so she hasn't hammered her own father to death after an incestuous rape attempt). 'But there are characteristics that are very similar. Lol's one of those characters who doesn't take any shit - and I don't take any shit either. I'm strong. I like to mother people, look after people. I lead the gang.'

The daughter of a butcher-turned-joiner, McClure grew up in a three-bed semi in Nottingham, where she still lives. 'We were kids that hung out on the streets; that's what we did,' she says of her own youth, but it turns out it was not entirely misspent. She honed her acting talent at Nottingham's highly regarded Central Tele-vision Workshop (Samantha Morton is another alumna) and it was here that Shane Meadows spotted her, casting her in his film A Room for Romeo Brass when she was 15. It was lucky that he did, as other avenues proved blocked.

McClure initially wanted to be a dancer, but was rejected by the Royal Ballet after a medical revealed her ankles were too weak. She did pass an audition for London's Italia Conti drama school, but her family couldn't afford to send her there. 'My mum wrote to every man and his dog and we just couldn't find the money,' she says. After school - 'which I loved... for the social side' - she tried a drama degree, but had little interest in the academic element and dropped out.

Her education since has mostly consisted of working the tills at Dorothy Perkins. 'I'm not that sort of person who would go, "Bugger it, I'm gonna follow my dreams." I'm quite realistic, I have to earn,' she says, citing the McClure family work ethic. When I ask her later what kind of actress she'd like to be in five years' time, the first thing she says is 'hard-working'; when pushed, she names Julie Walters as her inspiration.

Still, she has only just turned pro full-time, quitting her office admin job last year after eight years of temping. If that sounds a long wait, there have been breaks for filming, most racily an appearance in Madonna's movie Filth and Wisdom. Stephen Graham, her co-star in This Is England, a friend of Guy Ritchie, suggested her and the then Mrs Ritchie offered her the job on the strength of Romeo Brass.

'I first met her in a strip bar where she was auditioning pole dancers, so it was slightly out of my comfort zone,' she says of Madonna. 'You know what, it was an experience. One time, she flew us to Berlin on her private jet; the next day I was at my desk, emailing someone to fix the boiler.'

The contrasts should be less acute now: the phone has kept ringing since the BAFTA. She's just appeared as Damian Lewis's sidekick in the child-trafficking drama Stolen and in the first episode of Channel 4's series Coming Up, which showcases new directors. In 'Rough Skin' she plays Kelly, who has just served nine months in prison. She admits she could probably use a little comedy on her CV and fancies herself as an action heroine - 'I can just see myself with a gun' - but it's Lol who's closest to her heart. She describes the This Is England cast as 'like the most dysfunctional family. We're all on the same wavelength. Nobody's thinking, "Ooh, we're all on telly!" Shane wouldn't have it anyway, people getting too big for their boots.'

Meadows acts as both a mentor and friend to his actors, who respond with amazing performances (who could forget Thomas Turgoose as the junior skinhead in This Is England?). When I ask how Meadows coaxed her through the scenes that won her the BAFTA, McClure becomes visibly moved. 'What me and Johnny [Harris, the actor who played her father] and Shane did is just not something I'd share with anybody else. You know, it's a private thing between us three that got us where we needed to be. And that means experiencing how it feels to some degree.'

She clearly felt it as a great responsibility. 'As much as murdering your father feels rather dramatic, somebody's been through that I'm sure. In my eyes that character doesn't deserve to be on this earth. He's sexually abused a child, he continues to do that, rapes her friend it's just. You're stuck for words as to how you'd treat these people.'