After almost ten years on our screens in various film and TV productions, Emily Atack will bring her inaugural theatre production to High Wycombe tonight, June 6.

Interested in acting from an early age, she tells me how her passion became her career: “I just knew it was what I always wanted to do, there was never anything else for me. I come from a family of performers and show offs really. It was definitely what I wanted to do from a very, very young age.

“I went to a regular school, I did drama there. There wasn’t a massive drama department or anything like that I just did drama GCSE and all that kind of stuff, music and drama were the only subjects I succeeded in. I left school at 16 and wanted to get out there straight away and just work. I got an agent at 17 and then I got The Inbetweeners fairly quickly.

“It put me on the map really and I grew into a woman doing that. I started when I was 17 and finished when I was 20. It was an amazing way to spend your teenage years really.”

Best known for her role as Charlotte Hinchcliffe in the British sitcom between 2008 and 2010, more recently Emily has recently featured as Daphne in the film remake of Dad’s Army alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bill Nighy, Toby Jones and Michael Gambon.

Now, at 26-years-old, Emily has thrown herself into the world of theatre. In April she was given ten days to prepare for the role after taking over from Verity Rushworth who was expecting her first child.

“I feel like I’ve done a crash course,” Emily tells me. “I’ve learnt so much about myself both professionally and personally. It’s a completely different career, everything about it is different: the time you spend rehearsing, to the time you’re performing.

“You’re essentially living and breathing every moment of it, when you’re filming something you’re stopping and starting every minute because you do takes but with this you have to go from start to finish and you live and breathe every single moment and every single scene.

“It was the most insane whirlwind but I kind of am glad it happened that way because it didn’t give me any room to be frightened or to be a baby about it, I realised I had such a short amount of time and I had to use it to the best of my ability and just do my job and not waste a second worrying about it, just to learn it and be directed and get it done and just have fun with it.”

She may not have time to be frightened, but in those moments before going on stage Emily experiences nerves for the first time in her career.

“I get nervous now but I understand now when people say use your nerves – I used to think if you’re nervous it means you’ll screw everything up. I now completely know what people mean because you actually use your adrenalin.

“When you’re nervous it’s because you care about what you’re doing and it makes you emotional and it makes you put a million per cent into it because you care so much and you want to get it right.

“I don’t get nervous in TV and film, I get nervous if I’ve just started a job when you have to read through, that stuff can be a bit nerve-wracking but the second I’m on a set and they say action I don’t get nervous at all but with this it’s more excitement and adrenalin and anything can happen – that’s what you use you keep it in your gut and your heart and you use it to guide you through the performance, that’s the only way I can describe it.”

The new production of Breakfast at Tiffany’s is directed by Nikolai Foster and based on Truman Capote’s original story. Emily warns: “People coming who are expecting the movie, stop expecting that now.

“It’s based on the original novella, which is a very different story in itself, it’s a different character to the Audrey Hepburn version. The thing about the Holly Golightly role is that you put your own stamp on it, you can’t compare it to things and people like Audrey Hepburn; it’s just completely different.

“It’s your take on it. It’s how you have perceived it, reading through the script you take the reins on it and mould it into the way that you think it should be which is a lovely thing for an actor to do.”

So what is the story of the original novella, for those unsure?

“It’s a lovely story about two people who meet each other, Fred and Holly. Well, the guy, her neighbour, doesn’t have a name; she calls him Fred because she’s got a brother who’s away fighting the war and she misses him.

“It’s about their relationship that grows, Fred is confused about his sexuality, there is an undertone of him maybe being gay but then he falls in love with her and she turns his world upside down.

“They find out who they are together and they create this lovely friendship. He’s madly in love with her and she doesn’t even know who she is, she’s not capable of being in love with somebody but she cares for him deeply.”

Wycombe Swan Theatre, St Mary Street, High Wycombe, HP11 2XE, Monday, June 6 until Saturday, June 11. Details: 01494 512 000