Samantha Anderson plays a ghostly nun, who can allegedly still be sighted in the grounds of Borley Rectory, among other phenomena.
“Not just Marie the ghost, but also headless horsemen and sounds of carriages going past,” she added.
The 44-year-old, from Leigh-on-Sea, was up against fellow nominee Dame Helen Mirren, who also hails from the seaside town, and she described it as a “battle of the Essex girls”.
Dame Helen was in The Thursday Murder Club, which was also nominated in the Thriller category along with eight other films, external.
She said: “When you see who we were up against… it didn’t feel like a mistake — I’m not going to go that far — but it just felt like, ‘what?’.
“I’m amazing, absolutely buzzing; I can’t believe that happened; it was like a dream.”
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