When actress Roxy Shahidi signed up to appear on ITVBe’s fly-on-the-wall documentary series Drama Queens, she was looking forward to taking on an exciting new project away from her day job on Emmerdale.

But when the first episode aired earlier this month, she admits she was suddenly overcome with nerves. The show follows the behind-the-scenes lives of some of the nation’s favourite soap stars as they juggle work commitments with their personal lives. Roxy bravely allowed the cameras to roll during moments when she felt incredibly vulnerable – such as speaking about the sudden death of her father when he was 41 and she was only 17.

Even though she says she felt safe and comfortable filming those very personal scenes, the thought of them being shown to millions of viewers filled her with panic. “When the camera is rolling, it’s just you, the other ladies and this crew you’ve got to know and trust,” says Roxy, who teamed up with fellow actresses including Coronation Street ’s Lucy Fallon and Ellie Leach, and former EastEnders and now Hollyoaks star Rita Simons, for the eight-parter.

She adds: “But a few weeks later, you realise it’s actually going out on television and you can’t quite remember what it was you said! All you do remember is feeling vulnerable. I kept thinking, ‘What did I say? And how upset did I get?’ On Emmerdale, you perform a script and you’ve got that character to hide behind – but this is you, in the moment, being as authentic as you can be. And that leaves you feeling a little bit exposed.”

The fact that Roxy, 41, is naturally quite a private person meant it was an even bigger decision for her to commit to the show. “Doing a lot of press or reality stuff, or anything that really exposed me on a personal level, is something I’ve previously shied away from, because it made me feel vulnerable,” she admits. “Rather than brave it and put my toe in the water, I just kind of hid away from it.”

Drama Queens is something totally new for the star, who has played Leyla Harding on Emmerdale since 2008. Earlier this year, she also stepped out of her comfort zone to appear on Dancing On Ice. The reason? After turning 40 last year, she decided that when new experiences came her way, she needed to grab them with both hands. “Something happens when you hit that age – you realise that, if you’re lucky, you’ve got another 40 years left; that life is pretty short,” she says. “I just wanted to embrace new things. I think doing Drama Queens and Dancing On Ice was part of that.”

One of Roxy’s toughest conundrums, when she was offered Drama Queens, was whether to let viewers into her home life in Nottingham. She has always been private when it comes to her six-year-old daughter, who she shares with her husband of 14 years, actor Arsher Ali. In fact, the couple have never publicly revealed her name.