We are! And I love that TV is starting to dismantle this idea of the perfect woman. Once, we had to be likeable or messy, and now – as Wilderness proves – we can be both.

Historically, there are a couple of shows, like Buffy The Vampire Slayer and ER, that presented the sort of complicated female characters that I used to gravitate to as a viewer, but it was only ever a handful. Nowadays, you have Suzie Pickles [I Hate Suzie] and other amazing stories that do so much better than just, ‘I’m messy and I’m so difficult.’ Obviously, Liv does some absolutely dastardly things. However, it’s never – and I hope this does come across, as it’s what we really worked hard to do – consequence or conscience-free. She always feels the weight of what she’s done. But it feels weird to me that we’re only just doing stories like these, because women are the same as men: we’re all messy, and we all make mistakes, and we all try to do better or we don’t. It’s weird that we’ve kind of been stuck in these binary positions for so long.

Women in revenge stories have traditionally been treated as instruments within a narrative. Wilderness allows Liv the chance to be the story – how did you go about making that happen?

We wanted Liv to drive the story, rather than have a series of events happen to her… keeping her sense of agency throughout was really, really important. And, as you say, normally, when a man cheats on you on screen, you become the woman in Fatal Attraction. The show that did it so well recently, in a really different way to Wilderness, was Netflix’s Beef: it offered a really interesting, quite messy exploration of what it does to you on a psychological level if you single-mindedly pursue revenge.

What do you think we, as viewers, get from these dark and twisted revenge narratives?

I think there must be something cathartic about it. Take Promising Young Woman, for example: you’re just rooting for her, even though she does quite borderline things that you wouldn’t necessarily allow yourself to do. Still, you’re on her side, and it’s the same with Wilderness. We’ve watched episodes with test audiences who are like, ‘Just kill him!’

I think that is testament to Jenna’s amazing performance, and the fact that the show is shot so that you’re right on her shoulder, experiencing these horrible betrayals yourself. But I also think it’s because, as women, we are taught to be so good and quiet – and it’s so lovely to watch someone not having to be any of those things.

I suppose it plays into that ‘Good for her!’ trope, which sees us root for women doing terrible things as part of a satisfying revenge arc.

I find it absolutely fascinating when you can watch women being cruel or manipulative and still not see them as a villain. I guess I have always gravitated towards anti-heroines. But it’s weird when I see Liv described as one, because I think, ‘Oh, I just love her and want her to prosper!’

Wilderness exclusive: Marnie Dickens spills the beans on her exciting revenge drama