Zahra Ahmadi is channelling her inner 007 in new ITV thriller, Betrayal, and while it’s an action-packed step away from her previous roles, it’s also one that has a bit more of a personal connection for the actress. “I’ve never had a role like it,” Ahmadi tells me about her character of Mehreen Askari-Evans, an intelligence operative who is tasked to take over the duties of Shaun Evans’s John Hughes after he finds himself under an internal investigation. From their first on-screen meeting, the air is clouded with tension and mystery – plus an awkward grilling (and ace rebuttal from Ahmadi’s character) about Mehreen’s heritage. The character, like Ahmadi herself, is mixed-race and of Persian descent so when it came to crafting that scene (in which John randomly asks: ‘Where are you from?’), that came from Ahmadi’s personal experiences. Working with series writer David Eldridge and executive producer Tom Leggett was a collaborative joy, Ahmadi tells me, and came with the acknowledgement from Eldridge that while he “innately understands what it is to be human, …