ANNA Chancellor is fresh from the hairdressers, gently patting her newly cut and blow-dried locks. "I had to say: 'If you wash my hair and blood pours down the drain, don't worry, it's not real,'" she says, her blue eyes twinkling with merriment.

When we meet in Glasgow, the actress – who shot to fame as jilted "Duckface" in the 1994 romcom Four Weddings and a Funeral – is in the midst of filming the BBC adaptation of Agatha Christie's Ordeal by Innocence.

The ensemble cast for the big-budget drama, which began on Sunday evening, includes Bill Nighy, Morven Christie, Eleanor Tomlinson, Matthew Goode and Alice Eve.

Anna, 52, plays Rachel Argyll, a wealthy philanthropist and mother to five adopted children. Set in the 1950s, the action unfolds at the family estate Sunny Point – shot at Ardgowan Estate near Inverkip – and, in true Christie style, murder is on the cards.

Barely have the opening credits finished rolling than the first victim is claimed: Rachel bludgeoned to death with a whisky decanter in her study.

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Anna has spent the morning playing dead, lying on a stretcher with a sheet covering her face. Bill – her onscreen husband Leo – was also in the scene.

"He had to kiss my corpse which really made me laugh," she says. "I was being carried downstairs on a stretcher. I was hanging on to the stretcher as these poor, ex-policemen were carrying me, and I was a little bit heavy for them.

"I was shooting off it and hanging on like this" – she mimics gripping the sides with white knuckles – "then at the bottom, I had to take an in-breath of air as Bill takes off my shroud and kisses me. By that time, I felt totally hysterical."

So, she was in danger of corpsing – to use the acting terminology – while being a corpse? "Exactly! I thought: 'If I start laughing now while Bill is kissing me, I'm never going to stop laughing.'"

Cleaning herself up afterwards proved equally amusing. "It was quite funny having a shower," she says. "I was washing all the blood out my hair and it was just pouring down. It was like Psycho."

Was the stark warning to her hair stylist appreciated? "She did say: 'Oh my God, there is blood caked behind your ear …'" Anna hoots with laughter.

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Ordeal by Innocence was due to be shown in December last year, but was shelved after Ed Westwick, who played Mickey Argyll, faced allegations of rape and sexual assault in the US dating back several years, which the actor has strongly denied.

Christian Cooke replaced Westwick and large sections were reshot in January. None of that has yet unfolded when I meet Anna.

We mull over how life can come full circle. Her first acting job was in another Agatha Christie murder mystery, Witness for the Prosecution, at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre in Perthshire. Then in her mid-twenties, Anna played a court stenographer for six months – a role without a single line.

"I used to write continuous thought; my stream of consciousness," she recalls. "It was absolutely filthy. Really dirty. I realised that I was a filthy-minded person.

"I was getting my equity card," she adds. "We lived in the Highlands. That was with my daughter's father who has sadly died now – Jock [Scot], who was a poet."

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Agatha Christie has been a recurring theme throughout Anna's career. She did an episode of Marple in 2008 and appeared in a 1993 instalment of Poirot, playing the detective's great unrequited love Virginie Mesnard.

"Oh, you know much more than me," she laughs. "I forgot I was the love of Poirot's life. You know how Poirot wears violets in a brooch? I gave him those. I was a flashback as Virginie."

Her earliest memories of Agatha Christie were while attending St Mary's convent boarding school in Dorset. "We weren't allowed TV – only to watch Top of the Pops – but on a Feast Day they would screen an Agatha Christie film, the old fashioned black and white ones.

"I remember we saw Murder Most Foul with Margaret Rutherford. There were a few others, all with her, and I loved those."

Fast forward a few decades and it is Anna gracing our screens in a suspense-fuelled Christie whodunnit. Would her younger self have believed that? "Never," she says. "So much of being an actress you could never have imagined."

Her first big TV role was in Sky sci-fi soap opera Jupiter Moon in 1990. This led to the famed "By 'eck, it's gorgeous" gondola advert for Boddingtons and then Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Other career highlights include Pride and Prejudice, Kavanagh QC, Tipping the Velvet and Spooks.

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Anna is a joy to interview. She speaks her mind and doesn't feel the need to talk in boring soundbites. I admire the bright red raincoat hanging over the back of her chair.

"A bargain: £50 from a charity shop in Hyndland," she enthuses. "It's Burberry. That would cost £600 brand new."

The London-born actress has clearly enjoyed being based in Glasgow while filming Ordeal by Innocence. "I stayed in the west end," she says. "I have walked and walked through the back streets, Kelvingrove and into all the museums.

"I went to the World Pipe Band Championships and spent a lot of time wandering around, talking to people."

For Millennials, the term "duckface" means pouting for a mobile phone selfie, but for Generation X, Duckface will always be Anna.

"Is that me over? That is so sad," she jokes.

Although Anna insists she loves ducks. "I do. And I don't mind Duckface. It put me on the map."

Ordeal by Innocence continues on BBC One, Sunday, 9pm. Watch episode one on BBC iPlayer now