Kent-born Grace star Zoe Tapper's life with famous husband and her post-natal depression battle

Zoe Tapper is back on our TV screens tonight in the ITV drama Grace but away from the camera, the Kent-born actress leads a quiet life with her famous husband and their daughters.

Zoe has been a regular face on film and TV for 20 years, since securing her first role just a week out of drama school, opposite Rupert Everett and Claire Danes in the movie Stage Beauty.

Since then, she’s appeared in a number of hit TV shows, including Nexflix’s The One, and ITV ’s Mr Selfridge, and on Sunday, September 1 she's back on screen in the fourth series of Grace as Cleo Morey alongside John Simm.

The 42-year-old has been married to actor Oliver Dimsdale of Grantchester and Downton Abbey fame since 2008 and the couple have two daughters.

Zoe previously said: "I feel like love is just not enough, you have to have other things, a sense of self worth, you have to have interests and passions in life. (...) If you are lucky enough to find someone who you want to spend a lot of time with then that’s wonderful."

But it's not all been easy as during the podcast White Wine Question Time with Kate Thornton, Zoe spoke candidly about her battle with post-natal depression. She said: “When I had my daughter, I almost immediately, post-birth, had crippling postnatal depression. It hit me like a sledgehammer, and I couldn’t actually access the help I needed, at all.”

While medication helped, she explained that she “didn't really recover from it properly psychologically, because I couldn't talk about it… I didn't have the people supporting me that I needed to sort of work through those very complicated feelings".

Although she put better support in place during her second pregnancy she found herself hit yet again by this “debilitating” maternal illness. “Two weeks after birth, I’m suddenly like a zombie on the sofa – I mean, it was so extraordinary,” she recalled.

Her experience led her to free counselling service Mums Aid, run by “angel” Miriam Donaghy. She discovered the organisation was struggling for funding, and offered her assistance with “writing grants and bids”, including a proposal to Children In Need.

“We reasoned that… this has directly affected children,” she explained. “If the mother is not well, and is unable to look after the child to the best of their ability, it has a direct impact on children.”

To her delight, the Children In Need funding was secured and since then Zoe has watched the “London-centric” organisation grow to become a nationwide resource. “It’s a brilliant, brilliant organisation," she said.

Since getting support from the group, Zoe could not be better. She's back for the fourth series of Grace and enjoying life at home as a mum - to both her daughters and her cats, who often feature on her Instagram account.

Grace returns to ITV 1 on Sunday, September 1 at 8pm