'I wanted to do Nazanin justice'

Narges Rashidi stars alongside Joseph Fiennes in a dramatic retelling of political prisoner Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's six-year fight for freedom

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Narges Rashidi as Nazanin

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's baby daughter was just 22 months old when her mother was wrongly arrested, falsely labelled as a spy and then thrown in an Iranian jail. She was seven years old before they were reunited.

Now, Prisoner 951 tells the story of how Nazanin was detained in Iran and held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison for nearly six years while her husband Richard Ratcliffe desperately campaigned for her release.

Their story is being brought to life in a BBC drama starring Narges Rashidi and Joseph Fiennes as the couple torn apart, who did everything to reunite their family.

The case made headlines around the world, and Narges, who plays Nazanin, was determined to do justice to the couple's strength. "I was struck by how they navigated it all, and I was really impressed by their resilience," says Narges, 45. "Their love for each other and the strength of the bond between them really stood out for me. It's incredibly hard to go through something like this, but to do so and survive it with so much grace and hope, that was something that I found extremely impressive."