SOME things I have learnt about Sophie Kennedy Clark. She has a nose ring but no tattoos. She will drink out of the bottle if there are no glasses around. She likes to dance around the living room most days. She says she last kissed a girl about a month ago and she has never been in trouble with the police.

Never? “No,” she tells me. Twice. And then laughs like a hyena having its funny bone tickled.

I am beginning to think that it’s possible that not everything she has been telling me is strictly accurate.

"I am a natural rule breaker. I've never been good with certain rules or a hierarchy. I have a tendency to do the polar opposite of what I'm told to do. But I think that's part of being an artist. It's about challenging things, isn't it? Seeing how far you can go ... Without having run-ins with the police.”

One more thing I know about Sophie Kennedy Clark. She is enormous fun. Even in the painfully truncated time frame of a film junket interview she doesn’t leave you feeling short-changed.

If the nose ring is familiar that's because you might have seen it in BBC One's current twisty Sunday night drama The Cry which finishes on Sunday night. She’s the one playing Jenna Coleman's solicitous friend. The daughter of actor, broadcaster and singer Fiona Kennedy, and the granddaughter of Gaelic singers Calum Kennedy and Anne Gillies, she is now making a name for herself as an actor.

What else might you have seen her in? Well, she played a younger version of Judi Dench's titular character in Stephen Frears's Irish drama Philomena and has turned up in everything from Black Mirror to Lars Von Trier's film Nymphomaniac.

When we meet in Edinburgh, it's June and she has two films, Obey and Lucid, showing at the film festival. Indie flicks both. She loves indie cinema. "There's just a real sense of everyone coming together. It's a passion project."

She hasn't actually seen Lucid yet. And she knows there's the possibility with indie films that not many other people will either.

But that's OK, she says. "The great thing about being an actress is they're my memories. It's my life. I don't need everyone to rate what I do. You still get to meet cool people, fly around the world. That's a good enough life for me. "

And anyway, she says, it's work, isn't it? "I think it's really important to keep on doing. You get to hone your craft. There are so many actors who do stuff that maybe isn't that good, isn't that big. But they keep working because, you know, you have to pay your bills and you have to live.

"And acting isn't just about being glamorous. It's a trade. You come on to do a job like a plumber or an electrician."

Kennedy Clark lives in London these days. She’s currently squatting in her sister’s flat. Earlier this morning she caught the red eye flight with her Australian boyfriend and is now thinking what they might do together on their day off in Edinburgh tomorrow.

“Nail half a bottle of whisky and then go and get terrified on a ghost tour,” is her first thought.

She loves coming back to Scotland. Filming The Cry in Glasgow was a joy, she says. “Oh, Glasgow. What I would do for a fancy flat in the West End.”

What does she love about the place? “Just the banter in Glasgow. You’ve got to be your funniest version of yourself when you chat to your local newsagent or when you go down the chippie.

“And you get a bit lazy when you’re down in London.”

When are you at your most Scottish, Sophie? “Oh, drunk for sure. Angry as well. Drunk, angry or sometimes if there’s a certain group of people around, my edgy little naughty side comes out, my little tomboy alter ego.”

Kennedy Clark grew up near Aberdeen and if she had the choice she’d move back home at a shot. But, right now, she feels she has to be in London. “For auditions. You can put yourself down on tape, but I know a lot of stuff comes from being in the room and just meeting the director. People want to work with people they like. Going in and having that connection is really important.”

Is there a danger that you walk in and people and don’t see past the youth or the blondeness?

“I think it maybe takes them a second to realise they were wrong. Also, I don’t scare easy and I’ll go nose to nose and have a chat if people are out of line.

“I’m quite a big personality, so if anyone had any idea I was going to be some kind of wallflower I think by the first hello and handshake they would know: ‘Wrong chick to f*** with.’”

We are in a post-Weinstein world now and she hopes that things are changing in the industry. “No one’s going to fiddle around with chicks. There’s no room for that anymore.”

It was not ever thus. She has recently played the Hollywood silent film actress Mary Pickford in an unreleased film. Pickford was a symbol of a now lost world where men and women had a much equal status in the industry both in front of the camera and behind.

“The fact that so many people don’t know who Pickford is now is amazing,” Kennedy Clark admits. “At age 19 she was a multi-millionaire. Charlie Chaplin seems to have transcended time, but Mary Pickford has fallen by the wayside.”

But her industry is changing. The statistics remain terrible but there are more opportunities for women to write and produce and direct.

Kennedy Clark is keen on being one of them. She has just produced her first short film and she wants to do more. “It really gets under your skin, wanting to create.”

That said, producing is, she says, a bit more full-on than acting.

“I don’t think I quite knew what producing would take. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but as an actress you pitch you up, you say you like your coffee black and you don’t want breakfast.

“But when you’re producing you’re like: ‘How many people are vegan?’ And then you’re doing risk assessments, and … There’s a lot that needed just to get something made.”

Even so, she’s now writing her next short film and she would like to direct. “Having worked with some amazing directors the dedication and attention to detail is something you have to have. It’s many months of preparation you almost would have to take time off from acting to do that, which I would love to do. And I’ve now met some amazing actors who I would love to be able to try and direct.”

Kennedy Clark has told me in the past that Tilda Swinton is the actor she most admires, and she brings Swinton’s name up again when I ask her to dream big and paint her ideal future. Swinton’s, she says, is the sort of career she aspires to.

It’s the breadth of Swinton’s work she loves. “And no character is ever the same. She does great indies and big films, but she chooses the characters so well. And that’s what it’s all about.

“When I saw her in A Bigger Splash … Oh my God.”

We both start raving about Luca Guadagnino’s sun-dazzled 2015 Mediterranean drama is probably best known for Ralph Fiennes getting his groove on to Emotional Rescue.

“I love that film,” Kennedy Clark tells me as I prepare to go. “All I want to do is dance around to records with Ralph Fiennes.”

There is an image to leave you with. Sophie Kennedy Clark and Ralph Fiennes dancing around the room to the Rolling Stones. Are they having fun? I think so. I think it’s more than likely.

The Cry concludes on BBC One on Sunday night at 9pm.