Barnsley actress Katherine Kelly and Eve Myles on new Paramount+ series The Crow Girl

Welsh actress Myles, 46, known for playing Ceri Lewis in the long-running BBC Wales drama series Belonging, stars as DCI Jeanette Kilburn in the adaptation of Erik Axl Sund’s international best-selling novel of the same name.

Barnsley-born Kelly, 45, stars as psychotherapist Dr Sophia Craven, and is known for her role of Becky McDonald in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street from 2006 until 2012.

“From a character point of view, it’s exciting,” says Myles. “To begin with, you wouldn’t think that these two people are alike at all. They are the antithesis of each other, aesthetically and in terms of their rhythms and home life.

"Everything about them seems really opposite, but actually, they are similar animals, and one of the main entry points of that is taking their work home. In their personal and private lives, there are not many barriers between the two. There’s a real bleed out.

“They acknowledge the rules, but they don’t pay any attention to them if there’s something bigger at stake, which there absolutely is in this [series].

"So they recognise the same principles. I mean, I would never speak for another character, but Sophia certainly recognises that in Jeanette. And that’s unusual to come across and I think those professions don’t often meet in this way, certainly not in extremis.”

Kelly agrees and adds: “The fusion of the drama is when these two get together, and then sparks start to fly. But I think Jeanette tries and does too much.

"There are not enough hours in the day for this woman to be able to do what she needs to be doing.

"Sacrifices are unfortunately kind of inevitable, and in Jeanette’s life, what has to become sacrificed is her time at home and time with a family, and she suffers greatly for that in the series, when you watch it through.”

While Kelly is still known to many for Coronation Street, she has since starred in the likes of Mr Selfridge, The Sound Of Music Live, Criminal, Gentleman Jack, Mr Bates vs. The Post Office and The Long Shadow, ITV’s drama about the victims of Peter Sutcliffe.

The Crow Girl is a UK-original six-part series coming to Paramount+, produced by Emmy-winning creative team Buccaneer – the creators behind Irvine Welsh’s Crime and Marcella.

The series also stars BAFTA-winning Scottish actor Dougray Scott, 59, as DCI Jeanette Kilburn’s partner DI Lou Stanley, who played Sean Ambrose in Mission Impossible 2, and English actor Elliot Edusah, who stars as rookie DC Mike Dilliston.

He also appeared in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe as Valentine Golding and in Mike Leigh’s upcoming film Hard Truths As Daniel.

The nail-biting psychological thriller follows DCI Jeanette Kilburn and partner DI Lou Stanley, who are tasked with finding the killer when a spate of bodies of unidentified young men start to show up around the city, beaten and full of the anaesthetic lidocaine.

With a lack of evidence and pressure to solve the case mounting, Jeanette enlists the help of prime suspect Carl Lowry’s psychotherapist, Dr Sophia Craven, who offers a fresh but troubling perspective on the case.

But with the killer inching ever closer to home, Jeanette and the team are in a race against time to untangle the web of secrets to solve the mystery.

Myles and Kelly admit that there were so many interesting scenes that they shot for The Crow Girl that it’s difficult to pinpoint which were their favourite.

“It’s hard to quantify enjoyment, and the series is quite dark,” says Kelly.

“Sometimes some of the hardest scenes that you thought were going to be a battle, the fulfilment comes after you have sort of cracked it and then it actually turns out to be one of your favourites.

“And then as Eve [Myles] touched on before, we serve up a lot of different choices and ways when performing. A scene is never the same take twice, and then it’s up to the director to decide which they choose.

“So when watching it back, it’s always quite fascinating to see what they go for and which version works for telling that story. But I’ve got to say, when I read the script, I was really excited. It was giddying to read, and it was just brilliantly executed. So I think that’s a real highlight of the show, I think.”

“I think my favourite scenes are the ones that you have in your mind how they’re going to go one way, and then when you actually put it on its feet, it goes a completely different way. There’s a fear in that,” Myles adds.

“And again, sorry to everybody who’s heard it before. I work very much from my gut, and I work very much from instinct because that’s my superpower. That’s all I have. I have to listen to it. And sometimes your instinct is telling you one thing and the page is telling you another thing. But if you can marry both together, something really exciting happens.

“I found that all the time in doing this particular project, because we were really limited on time and we had so much to shoot, and the story is so dense and complex, but sometimes it’s hard to find the places where you can dance and you can improvise a bit, or you can try something different, but we managed it. So many scenes I came away feeling surprised and engaged in a different way.”

The Crow Girl comes to Paramount+ on Thursday, January 16.