THE female lead could not have a Scouse accent – of that, the producers of Hold Back the Night were insistent.

Yet, the part of abused girl Charleen was offered to Liverpool actress Christine Tremarco, whose accent is about as broad as it gets.

Without the help of a stranger and a tape recorder, she would never have clinched the role, she reveals.

“I’d done Faith playing Ray Winstone’s daughter, which was the first time I’d ever done an accent and I didn’t do it very well, I don’t think,” says Tremarco, who is taking part in a Q&A session following a special screening of the 1999 film on Monday.

“So, for this, I jumped a train up to Bradford and found a theatre – I just showed up – and this lady said ‘I’ll help you’.

“So she read the script and I Dictaphoned her.”

Tremarco found the experience a bit awkward: “The character of Charleen swears an awful lot – the poor woman!” she laughs.

Her unconventional method helped her perfect her Bradford accent and the part was hers.

The story of a road trip through Scotland, Hold Back the Night, follows two young people, Charleen and Declan (Stuart Sinclair Blyth), who are on the run from their past, their families and the police.

Both are damaged, complex and difficult but soon they begin to come to terms with each other.

Tremarco, who was 21 at the time of filming, says it was a bittersweet experience to play the role, described by the movie’s producer, Sally Hibbin, as “the kind of person you don't really like at all until you understand where she comes from”.

“It was a testing emotional journey,” says the 32-year-old.

“Charleen is quite hard-nosed.

“There were some scenes which I’d film and then go back to the hotel room and be a bit upset, but I loved it and I learned an awful lot on that job.”

The screening of Hold Back the Night is one of a series of events that raise money for Liverpool-based Clapperboard Youth, an organisation that encourages young people to create their own films.

Tremarco was a judge in the recent Clapperboard Awards, and says the entries were of a very high standard.

“It’s such a great opportunity for the kids – they can make something that’s actually theirs,” she says. “I think their films should be screened on TV.”

Tremarco had her own unconventional way into the business. She was spotted by a talent scout while performing with a West Derby drama group and given a part in 1992 TV two-parter, The Leaving of Liverpool. Since then, there has been no shortage of roles including in television dramas Clocking Off, Waterloo Road and Jimmy McGovern’s Priest.

“I was extremely lucky,” she says. “I had the forms for drama school but I just never had to fill them in.”

CLAPPERBOARD Presents Christine Tremarco is at Picturehouse @ FACT on Monday. Tickets £10 (£7 concs), 0871 902 5737.