Stirling work

She should know, she’s been studying what it might be like for ITV1’s new series Boy Meets Girl.

She plays glamorous fashion journalist Veronica Burton, who is struck by lightning and finds herself trapped in the body of a man – namely scruffy DIY store worker Danny Reed (played by Martin Freeman).

He is, according to Stirling, a bit of a geek, a conspiracy theorist and an absolute fantasist. “Danny’s a man who’s never grown up, but he’s full of passion,”

she adds.

After the two have swapped bodies, Danny sets out to find the person he used to be, while trying to pass himself off as Veronica. You try living the life of a fashion journalist with the mind of a geeky DIY man.

Stirling, actress daughter of Diana Rigg, found Danny trapped in Veronica's body “the most fun, extraordinary testing character to play”.

As she explains: “We define ourselves by our gender, so when that’s taken away and you’re placed in a foreign body, you have to get used to a different mind set, a different voice and a different environment.

“It’s as much about gender as it is about class and it’s quite dark as well as being funny.”

Preparing for the role saw him watching everything that featured transgender roles. She’s already played four male parts in her career, so she had a head start. “Martin and I worked incredibly hard at getting the right physical appearance and the right voices,” she says.

“We video taped each other and copied each other’s mannerisms. Waking up in someone else’s body would be a nightmare and I hope we’ve told that story.

“It was all very challenging. In almost every scene, I made notes about where I would be mentally. I used to do a full day of filming, go home and then do two hours of homework before the next day.

“It was all plotted so carefully, even down to costume as Veronica is a fashion journalist, so she has a capsule wardrobe in which tracksuit bottoms don’t feature.”

Navigating Veronica’s world and relationships as Danny was all part of the challenge. “Veronica has a boyfriend and there’s a scene where they make love and my performance had to convey Danny’s mind frame, which is trying to cope with the situation by thinking of his fantasy woman, Keira Knightly,” she says.

Seeing Veronica’s world from Danny’s point of view is something she finds interesting.

“For example, when he discovers she’s been having an affair it’s totally mind-boggling for him. He’s so naive and simplistic that he doesn’t understand why you would be with someone if you didn't love them,” says Stirling.

Freeman’s research to play a woman trapped in a man’s body sent him to an acting teacher who gave him some clues about female physical appearance and how it is different to males’.

“Of course, all women are different, but there are some things that hold true, such as the way a woman carries herself and the way a woman speaks,” he says.

“Voice projection is very different, and it’s very easy to get it wrong and end up being a bit too panto. It was very helpful to have someone say put your chin down, make your chest softer, use your head less and use your eyes more, because those are little clues that I wouldn't necessarily have picked up on.”

He believes Boy Meets Girl avoids the cliches of other gender-swapping dramas.

It could have been quite facile, says Freeman, but it works because “I’ve got a bit of femininity about me and Rachael has a bit of boyishness about her,” he says.

David Allison, writer of the four-part series, reckons Boy Meets Girl is as much about class as gender – about a working class guy who’s never experienced comfort, wealth and status suddenly having a taste of it for the first time, and about a woman who’s grown up in middle class trappings suddenly having to fend for herself as a non-person on the street.

■ Boy Meets Girl begins on ITV1, on Friday, at 9pm.