Former EastEnders star Maisie Smith will be appearing in The Talented Mr Ripley at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford from February 17 to 21.

The play, based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 psychological thriller, sees the characters step into a world of deception, desire and deadly ambition, having to answer the question ‘How far would you go to become someone else?’.

Actors and actresses are faced with that poser every day, and Maisie revealed she had enlisted a little help for her first straight play.

Playing Marge Sherwood, a 1950s woman from the USA, Essex-born Maisie said: "She's a little more well-spoken than I am, but I have a dialect coach and I'm feeling good about the American accent."

The ten-strong ensemble cast in this electrifying adaptation also features Ed McVey as Tom Ripley and Bruce Herbelin-Earle as Dickie Greenleaf.

With razor-sharp dialogue, simmering tension and a dangerously charismatic anti-hero in Ripley, this gripping production pulls the audience into Ripley’s intoxicating world, where nothing is quite as it seems.

Maisie was drawn to Marge Sherwood for a variety of reasons: "She's very smart, she's creative and I'd say she's intuitive too, because she's probably one of the only people who suspects that Tom Ripley is twisted. Everyone else is completely involved in his lie, but Marge sees through it."

She agrees with writer and director Mark Leipacher that Marge is far from a typical 1950s female character: "Absolutely. She's a very strong woman, she has her own house and she and Dickie aren't in a relationship as such, so she's an empowered woman, not just a 'wife' character or anything like that.

"She writes her own books and she's a photographer, and I have a camera and I love taking photos. Plus I've started writing and doing some painting, so we share that creative side."

The actress came to fame as Tiffany Butcher on EastEnders. She said: "I had such a fun time there. It was hard work and I always say that we did ten scenes a day most days, whereas in most other jobs you wouldn't ever do that many.

“I didn't go to drama school so it was challenging, but I felt like I learned so much from being around such talented people."

Doing Strictly Come Dancing, on which Maisie came second in 2020, was another dream job: "I can't believe I even got paid for it! I got to stretch myself more than I even knew I could, and that led to me being in the Strictly Ballroom musical - which Craig Revel Horwood directed."

Gwyneth Paltrow and Dakota Fanning played Marge in Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film version and the 2024 Netflix television series Ripley respectively.

But Maisie said: "I've seen the other performances, and they were brilliant, but I haven't rewatched them because I never want to feel like I'm copying someone. I want to interpret a character in my own way without any outside influence."

For tickets, priced from £37 (concessions from £15), visit https://www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk/whats-on/talented-mr-ripley