VIP: 'Bonnie & Clyde' star Grainger is good at being bad

Holliday Grainger knows how to play bad girls.

"The last few years have been my Bonnie Parker practice," the British actress, 25, says of her portrayals of the infamous Lucrezia Borgia in Showtime's The Borgias for three seasons and "the manipulative femme fatale Estella" in last year's film of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

Next, she takes on Bonnie & Clyde, spending four hours as the girl who hooked up with Clyde Barrow (Emile Hirsch) to become a 1930s outlaw icon. The miniseries airs simultaneously on Lifetime, A&E and History on Sunday and Monday nights (9 p.m. ET/PT).

"What helped me most was reading extracts from Bonnie's diaries," Grainger says of preparing for the role. "Bonnie seemed like this sweet, timid mommy's girl who was very young for her age, but within two years, she turned into someone whose philosophy of life was to live fast and die hard."

Grainger is not so bad in the upcoming live version of Cinderella, playing evil stepsister Anastasia. "I like to do parts where I know something about the story," she says.

Plus, she has a soft spot for her character. "Anastasia isn't really evil. She is plagued by jealousy and rivalry. She is quite emotionally stunted and intensely selfish."

Grainger herself sounds a lot more giggly, with a light-hearted moniker to boot. Her first name is a semi-nod to jazz singer Billie Holiday. "My parents were going to call me Billie. Then they thought 'Molly,' and Molly sounds a lot like Holly."