Former Eastenders star and Bionic Woman Michelle Ryan is looking for love

It's also the basis of new two-part rom-com Mr Eleven, which stars Michelle Ryan as Saz.
"Saz is a maths teacher," begins Michelle, "so everything for her is about numbers and stats. That's how she lives her life."

The programme begins on Saz's wedding day as she prepares to marry Dan, played by
Sean Maguire, who like Michelle is also a former EastEnder.

At the wedding reception, Saz is perfectly happy - content she's chosen the right man to marry and that her life is going according to her rigid plan. All that changes during a drunken chat with old flame Alex [Adam Garcia], who reveals that on the night he and Saz spent together, she passed out before anything could happen.

That means Dan, her ideal Mr Eleven, is actually Mr Ten and that she's married the wrong man.

"Knowing Dan was her Mr Eleven made her feel more secure," says Michelle. "So when she finds out he isn't, she gets scared and they split up.

"Having said that, a lot of what happens on her wedding day isn't just Saz's own creation - during their big argument it comes out that Dan slept with somebody else when they first started seeing each other. His excuse is that they hadn't had the 'commitment chat', yet in her head she already thought they were committed."

Saz then goes back through her past, meeting old boyfriends and trying to work out why they didn't last.

As Michelle explains, however, her character's obsession with order is more deep-rooted than it might first seem.

"She lost her dad when she was very young and remembers her mum coming home from hospital with her dad's coat and there was a button missing," says Michelle. "She thinks if she'd have found the button, her dad wouldn't have died, so obsessing over every detail is a coping mechanism.

"As she's become an adult, she wants to control everything. At her wedding, it's all beautiful but there's a flower that's drooping and she has to go and fix it as it bothers her so much. Her world just goes into a spin from there."

With Alex back on the scene, and declaring his interest in Saz once again, she has to choose between the two men in her life - does she carry on with her marriage, despite Dan not being the right number, or does she see how things work out with Alex, who would, should things go to plan, become her real Mr Eleven?

But do women really believe in numbers, Mr Right and all that? It's nonsense isn't it?

"It's funny, all my girlfriends I mention it to start counting up immediately. It's definitely an interesting concept," says Michelle, who says she doesn't believe in there being one special person out there she's waiting to meet.

"I think it's each to their own when it comes to finding a partner," says the 25-year-old.

"I met some nice Canadians and Americans when I was over there, but there are some great British men, but then I like Italians too," she says, laughing. "I feel like I'm at an age where I should keep my options open."

Back when he was in EastEnders and had some success as a popstar, Sean Maguire was quite the heartthrob and the very mention of the name is enough to elicit blissful expressions from women of a certain age.

Michelle admits she definitely had a crush on Sean, and was aware of Adam Garcia's work too.

"I remember going to see Adam in Saturday Night Fever, and when my agent said he was going to be in the show too, that was really exciting," she says.

"When I met them both though I thought 'My God, I used to really fancy you two, but now there's nothing'. It was definitely a teen thing, but it was a good job I didn't still fancy them, I would have been so distracted while we were filming.

"Doing love scenes with Adam and Sean though, it's not exactly hard work," she adds.

"And they're both such nice guys. Sean has been in LA for nine years now, but apart from the tan and white teeth, he's not gone all Hollywood, he's lovely."

Prior to filming Mr Eleven, which was actually made at the beginning of 2008 but 'frozen' by ITV1 until now, Michelle was living in Vancouver making Bionic Woman. Despite its success, both in the States and over here, where it was shown on ITV2, it was axed by the network. Nevertheless, it was enough to distance her from EastEnders, in which she played Zoe Slater for five years, and she's since appeared in Doctor Who, Merlin and Adam Sandler film Flick.

"No matter what I achieve I think people are still going to know me for being Zoe Slater," she says, quite happily. "The audience seemed to like her so much.

"I was filming a scene for Mr Eleven in a hospital and these young girls came over and they were talking to me about EastEnders, but that's fine. Another time I was in LA at a premier, signing autographs and I could hear someone shouting 'Zoe, Zoe'. I didn't think it could be for me, but I turned around and it was.

"EastEnders is such an amazing apprenticeship, and there's no way I would have had as much success on Bionic Woman without the training I got," she continues.

"You just have to do the work. There's no time to get above yourself there, and you realise you're part of something much bigger.

"In the US they don't really know the soap so well, so it's Bionic Woman I'm known for. I was in an airport going through customs and the lady said 'Aren't your metal arms going to set off the alarms?'

"I just hope she knew it wasn't real."