The Bionic Woman is due to kick off on ITV2 this Tuesday night, and star of the show, Michelle Ryan, the girl we know as Zoe Slater, reckons she could probably kick butt on the streets if need be following her rigorous training routine for the role of Jaime Sommers the Bionic Woman.

“Certainly when I was training regularly I think I could handle in a situation,” she laughs. “You’d have to think hard not to let on the moves you were going to make though or it would be a bit obvious.”

Michelle needed to learn a new form of exercise to prepare for the role of the Bionic Woman.

“Krav Maga is an Israeli martial art discipline with lots of spinning, flying kicks and using elbows and knees. It’s about learning how to disarm someone if they had a gun pointing at your head. There’s lots of street fighting. It’s really hardcore stuff.

“I had to do an hour and a half working with a personal trainer five or six days a week and then two hours with a Krav Maga tutor two or three times a week. It was intense but I got great abs from doing it so it was worth the effort.

“I used to dance and have always been quite athletic so I had good coordination and find exercise fairly easy to get into.”

Michelle explains that she was in a hotel room in LA when she learnt she’d landed the role.

“I was completely overwhelmed. I text everyone at home and drank champagne. I’d never seen the original Bionic Woman but my mum had been a fan and had the Jaime Sommers’ lunchbox. I was shocked and honoured that I’d been chosen to recreate this iconic role.”

Michelle continues: “I knew when taking it on that it would be similar to EastEnders in that there would be huge amounts of publicity and hype and that everyone would have an opinion, so that was slightly daunting. I just thought I should just go for it and enjoy the experience. It’s a dream role really.

Describing her character Michelle says: “I think Jaime has strength and feistiness to her but she also has this real vulnerability underneath and she is different from everybody else because she is bionic.

“Not only is she dealing with everything that a young woman in her early 20s has to cope with but she’s also coming to terms with the fact she is Bionic and has all these amazing new abilities and strengths. It’s a great female role to play. So often the characters you go up for are the bimbo or the bitch, whereas Jaime has so many layers to her.”