Michelle Hardwick felt "giddy" when she was shooting \'Emmerdale\' scenes in a prison cell.
The 43-year-old actress was excited when she read in the script that her character Vanessa Woodfield was being banged up after an altercation with a nurse, because the only time her alter-ego has been near jail in the past is to wait for her fiancée Charity Dingle (Emma Atkins).
She said: "Vanessa ended up in a prison cell, which me, as an actress, loved filming.
"I\'d never been on that set before, so I got dead giddy that I was going to the prison.
"The closest she\'s been [to prison] is when she\'s had to wait for Charity to come out, because that\'s Charity\'s stomping ground.
"So it was all new to her."
Michelle enjoyed filming in the jail cell because she had plenty of "peace and quiet", and found her character\'s law-breaking scenes "good fun" to shoot.
She said: "I filmed it and I was sat in this prison cell on my own. It was a nice bit of peace and quiet really.
"It sounds odd to say but it was good fun filming those sort of scenes."
Vanessa\'s arrest comes after she accidentally hits a nurse in the local hospital following a steamy argument with Amy Wyatt (Natalie Ann Jamieson).
She added: "A nurse comes in and tells her to lower her voice, but she doesn\'t and she carries on because she sees red.
"The nurse goes to grab Vanessa\'s arm to take her out of the room and Vanessa shrugs her off but as she does that the nurse loses her balance and falls.
"Security come and get Vanessa, and take her out. She then gets arrested."
Michelle admitted it was "ironic" Vanessa was arrested after she recently discovered Amy and her mum Kerry Wyatt (Laura Norton) were responsible for the factory fire which killed Vanessa and Tracy Metcalfe\'s (Amy Walsh) father Frank Clayton (Michael Praed).
