Sophia Myles stars with Jamie Bell in David Mackenzie’s scorching new movie Hallam Foe, which is opening this year’s Edinburgh Film Festival.

Mackenzie’s a Scot and the picture was shot there, so why not?

Festival openers aren’t always much cop, but this is as good as it gets, with Sophia giving her best screen performance to date as a hotel human resources manager who becomes the object of oddball Jamie’s desire (he constantly spies on her).

Sophia’s character Kate is, on the face of it, a hard-working, modern career girl.

But she has a darker side, and soon she and Hallam become passionately involved.

Sophia said she was more nervous about doing a dance scene than nude moments with Jamie.

“I had to dance on my own in front of the boy who made Billy Elliot famous,” she said, laughing.

“I have two left feet and I was begging David Mackenzie to cut the scene.”

After she made Hallam Foe, Sophia shot the sci-fi Viking thriller Outlander in Nova Scotia.

“I was the one with a bare midriff, wearing fur and leather. Why is it the girl who always ends up wearing the least in movies?” she joked.

As we chatted about women as sexual objects in cinema, she suddenly leant forward and whispered: “I have to say, though, that Jamie Bell’s naked bottom is pretty impressive. I wasn’t disappointed.”

Sophia was struck by the voyeurism theme in Hallam Foe, given the crazy celebrity culture we live in.

“Kate is effectively in Big Brother, she just doesn’t know it,” she said.