“I love that we're popping your cherry,” laughs Jodie Comer, as I take my seat opposite her at a press junket for the hotly anticipated 28 Years Later, the second sequel to director Danny Boyle's genre-defining masterpiece 28 Days Later. I've unwisely confessed that this is my first ‘IRL’ junket, and Jodie, despite being in the middle of a hectic press day, is doing a magnificent job of putting me at ease.

Styled by Danielle Goldberg, Jodie is wearing a pre-fall 2025 Gucci jumpsuit and looks a million miles away from Isla, her frayed, emotionally-disturbed character in 28 Years Later. The film is set in 2030, 28 years after a virus was accidentally unleashed in the UK, infecting the population with uncontrollable, murderous rage. We first meet Isla, Jodie's character, on Lindisfarne, a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, where she lives with her husband, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and son, Spike (Alfie Williams), as part of a tight-knit community of survivors.

Throughout the film, Jodie looks “sweaty and rough,” as described by the film's makeup supervisor, Flora Moody, who, for what it's worth, adds, “It’s very hard making Jodie look rough!” Isla has a mysterious illness, one that causes immense headaches, confusion, and paranoia. There are no doctors on the island, so Isla's symptoms remain untreated – a source of anguish for her family, especially son Spike, who goes to extreme measures to seek medical care for his mother.

“We were able to sit with Alex Garland and Danny Boyd (the respective screenwriter and director of 28 Years Later) and go through the script and create our own little histories of what the relationship to the island was, when Spike came along, and then get up on our feet,” Jodie tells me, reflecting on the charged family dynamic she created with Aaron and Alfie. “Danny had all the props from the house, he had a bed in the rehearsal room, and then we could block scenes out and get in the bed, get under the cover and play around and be silly.”

28 Years Later is actor Alfie Williams' big-screen debut, a colossal achievement for the 14-year-old from Gateshead. “I think we both felt protective of Alfie, especially Aaron,” Jodie tells me. “Aaron had a lot of stunt rehearsals and stuff (with Alfie), so they spent even more time together. It was just important for him to feel comfortable.

“From the moment I met Alfie, he seemed to have such an instinct, a confidence and a fearlessness, actually, which I was like, ‘Wow’, I'm inspired by that. I want to harness some of that for me.”

Before Isla's character really gets going, you'd be forgiven for thinking 28 Years Later sets up its stall as a coming-of-age reckoning solely between father and son. Not the case. When Spike gets wind of a doctor on the mainland, he lures his mother away from the island towards the dangerous hellscape of infected England, where, amongst other threats, they must reckon with the ‘Alpha infected’, AKA ‘zombies’ with a penchant for ripping off their victims' heads and using their blood-soaked spines as weaponry.

Despite the ghoulish subject matter, the atmosphere on set was one of positivity. “I'm a silly person,” Jodie laughs, adding, "So I think when we weren't rolling, it wasn't like the set was kind of heavy in any way.

“That's another thing I've learned from working with Danny: he leads such a beautiful, calm, and playful set. He's incredibly personable. Everything is a conversation and is out in the open. There is no reason for it to be any other way.”

She continues, “Some people have certain processes, but I'm a big believer that I don't think your process should inflict any sort of pain on anyone else or make anyone else feel uncomfortable or delay a process. You know what I mean?”

One of Jodie's most memorable scenes in 28 Years Later comes early on, involving a screaming match between her and on-screen husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson. How does she prepare for a scene like that? How does she conjure up rage on demand?

“So on day one, I'm screaming at Aaron. I'm like, 'I'm so sorry we've only just met, but this is the way it is,'” laughs Jodie. She praises Danny Boyle for running certain scenes together, allowing her to get further into character and “get to a point where that rage is present”, while the first scene takes place. “It's funny,” she continues. “I find it hard to analyse afterwards. I feel like you're always just trying to be in the moment of it. But I can't say I've screamed at many people like that in my life. So it was kind of nice to try it out.”

We discuss female fear and how it has evolved – both in society and within the 28 franchise – since the release of the first film in 2002. I ask about Jodie's relationship to fear; how does she reflect it within her characters? “I'm sure there are depths of fear that I've never ever experienced before," Jodie starts. “But I always feel like there's a challenge within fear, and I'm thinking now in regards to roles and what I choose, and that I usually feel that over the other side of fear is growth, a reckoning or a realisation. And so I'm always trying to dare myself to go there.”

Last year, I attended a screening of Prima Facie, the play written by Suzie Miller, which explores how Tess, a defence barrister played by Jodie, reckons with the traumatic aftermath of being raped. Granted, no one is infected with the ‘rage virus’ in Prima Facie, but its themes of fear and survival are just as potent as in 28 Years Later. “I feel very blessed,” says Jodie, reflecting on Prima Facie. “I feel like playing Tess, there's so much of my own fear that I was kind of confronted with in that, that I've been able to face and to turn into something else.”

To absolutely no one's surprise, Jodie has already received critical acclaim, not to mention Oscar buzz, for her standout performance in 28 Years Later. There's one scene in particular that has stayed with me, which involves an infected woman in labour. It's gory, yes, but it also ushers in a deeply powerful moment between Isla and her son Spike. In a film all about death, Jodie and Alfie's scenes together are fizzing with life.

“I think through Isla, there's a real kind of tenderness and an innocence in that she wants her child to keep hold of and not to meet the exterior harshness with harshness, but to come at it from a different way,” says Jodie, reflecting on Isla and Spike's relationship.

“But it was nuanced,” she continues. “Spike is often having to be the parent. There are moments where Isla has presence and she's able to be there for him in the way he really needs, but a lot of the time, he's having to guide her to comfort her, to nurture her. And I thought, that's interesting. It's different from my relationship with my mum. And I know it was the same for Alfie because we'd, we'd only just met and he was having to lead me, guide me and be tactile with me, and not be scared to manoeuvre me around.”

According to Jodie, Isla and Spike's relationship “took a little bit of finding”, but “it was beautiful to see it on screen.” Agreed.