A New Deyn

Agyness Deyn was one of the most in-demand models of the noughties, before giving it all up to act. Her gritty new BBC role proves it was worth the gamble

- Lucy Pavia

There’s a particularly dark scene in the opening episode of new BBC drama Hard Sun where Agyness Deyn beats the proverbial – for want of a better description – out of her co-star Jim Sturgess. As detectives Elaine Renko and Robert Hicks, the two circle each other on a deserted bank of the River Thames. A disused shopping trolley lies on the pebbles nearby. Deyn has never looked quite so at home.

The permanent move from top fashion model to actress that Deyn made six years ago has paid off. She’s already won critical acclaim for soulful performances in indie films such as Terence Davies’ Sunset Song and Electricity, but Hard Sun is her first television outing. And it’s arguably her biggest role to date – a twisty new pre-apocalyptic series by Luther creator Neil Cross that opens in modern-day London five years before the end of the world.

Ahead of the show’s launch, I meet Deyn in an appropriately derelict-looking north-east London studio, where we sit on a pair of dusty leather armchairs to chat. She’s in a utilitarian all-black outfit of long dark coat, black T-shirt, straight leg trousers and leather army boots, her now dark brown hair trimmed short.

Deyn’s moment in the fashion sun seems like light years ago now, and talking to her you get the sense this is where she’d like it to remain, politely nudging the conversation away from her modelling past whenever we get close. After all, the origins of her career, changing her name from Laura Hollins to Agyness Deyn on the advice of a numerology expert and getting scouted in Camden Town with Henry Holland, are pretty well documented, as is the whirlwind of shows and campaigns that followed.