Real life of After The Flood's Sophie Rundle - famous co-star partner, Covid ordeal and family apology

The actress, 35, has also revealed some exciting news ahead of the new ITV drama

Sophie Rundle stars in ITV's latest gripping drama After The Flood, which kicks off on Wednesday night (January 10). The actress, 35, is in a long-term relationship with one of her co-stars - and is even expecting a second child with him.

The new series focuses on a quaint fictional village in England which is devastated by flooding. But the natural disaster soon becomes a murder mystery when a man is found dead in a carpark.

That's when PC Joanna Marshall - played by Sophie - is called in to investigate. She becomes fixated on the death, as it soon transpires the man may not have been a flood victim after all. The six-parter is from BAFTA-nominated writer and actor Mick Ford, known for his work on Netflix's Stay Close and The Stranger.

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We take a closer look at Sophie's life, including her well-known co-star partner, her impressive career and her famous siblings.

Sophie, who trained at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, is perhaps most recognisable as Ada Thorne from BBC One's hit periodical drama Peaky Blinders. But the actress, from High Wycombe, also left fans traumatised after her brutal death in hit BBC One crime drama Happy Valley.

Viewers will remember that her character, a rookie policewoman, met her fate when Tommy Lee Royce reversed his car into her. Tommy, played by James Norton, brutally drove over her twice more after she fell to the ground.

Describing how the scene played out, Sophie had previously explained: "When Happy Valley came back for series three, people still asked me about it. I’m fine, no one did a three-point turn over me! It’s really stayed with people, I think because it’s so brutal."

She added: "I’d like to apologise for traumatising the entire nation. I feel sorry for my parents who had to watch that."

Sophie has an impressive catalogue of credits. Her other roles have included Ann Walker in BBC One's Gentleman Jack, Vicky Budd in the BBC television series Bodyguard and code-breaker Lucy in the ITV drama series The Bletchley Circle.

But it was her part as Alice in Sky One's 2017 drama Jamestown that lead her to find love. On set, she locked eyes with her now-fiancé Matt Stokoe, who played James Read in the show.

The couple have been together for almost seven years. As chance would have it, Matt plays Sophie's husband in After The Flood. He is cast as Pat Holman, a detective from the Serious Crime squad, who ends up working alongside his wife when the body is found.

Sophie told WhatToWatch of the casting: “We weren't sure about doing it together because there's an inevitable interest and we're quite private in that sense. It's definitely easier working with your partner — or even just someone you worked with before — rather than turning up on set and saying 'Hi, nice to meet you. I'm your wife!”

The pair became proud parents for the first time in April 2021, welcoming a son. Their happy announcement followed a health scare, when the actress was hospitalised with Coronavirus.

Taking to Instagram at the time in 2020, she told her 250,000 followers: “Greetings from my sickbed. So, for Christmas this year I got myself a juicy bout of Covid-19.

“I also have a very festive bloodshot eye from all of the hardcore vomiting I was doing in the hospital. I can taste nothing; I have a cough to rival a Dickensian workhouse orphan boy.”

Thankfully, Sophie managed to make a swift recovery as the pregnant actress kept her pregnancy under wraps. The star has now announced that baby number two is on the way.

And while her character Joanna is with child in the new drama, Sophie herself wasn't pregnant at the time - joking that it's been the 'longest pregnancy ever.' Appearing on BBC’s The One Show on January 9, she revealed: "I am now pregnant in real life."

Referring to After The Flood, she explained: "[I] wasn’t pregnant then, had a big fake bump and I think I was sort of put off when I had the fake bump - then enough time had passed and now I’m going in for more."

Meanwhile Sophie isn’t the only member of the Rundle family to have made a name for himself in the world of acting. While her older brother, James, is a writer, her younger brother, Henry, is an actor and appeared in the West End play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Speaking to Marie Claire in 2019 about her upbringing, the talented star shone a light on this showbiz gene. "My granddad was a line producer, and we have pictures of him with Gregory Peck in the 60s, so I think it was in the air," Sophie said.

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She continued: "As a family, we’d watch films and talk about people on screen – what was good or bad, and whether you believed them and their stories. I loved that."

After The Flood airs on Wednesdays at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.