Kaya Scodelario is a woman in transition.
At 19, she is on the cusp of both adulthood and international fame and was recently plucked from teen drama Skins to appear in Andrea Arnold's big-screen adaptation of Wuthering Heights.
Not only that, she took on the lead role of Heathcliff's Cathy, with no formal drama training and having never read the book ("our school didn’t do that," she explains).
Not that any of this phases Kaya. In fact the up-and-coming talent of British cinema seems remarkably composed when we meet in central London to discuss her latest film.
"Obviously leaving Skins was terrifying – it’s like leaving school or home for the first time," she says. "And you worry, you think is everyone going to be horrible, is everyone going to be bitchy - what’s it going to be like? (But) I was really lucky. Everyone on Wuthering Heights was amazing. It was a really nice crew and a really nice cast."
Kaya is of course best known for playing the popular and enigmatic Effie in Skins, a role she all but fell into after bumping into the director having a cigarette outside auditions. Her lead in Wuthering Heights was almost as accidental, by the way she describes it - and she was "honestly shocked" to land it.
"The script had been going around for about two years before it went into production. Gemma Arterton was attached to it, Natalie Portman… and then something fell through and it came back round again," she says. "And I was like, no I’m no Gemma Arterton or Natalie Portman, I can’t do that – I thought you’d have to have been to drama school and be a bit older and be very posh and put together and I was like, that’s not me at all. How am I going to do this? especially coming from Skins. I was really nervous about it."
"People assume you have to have a lot of money to get into film or parents who are in the industry already"
But, she says, writer and director Andrea Arnold won her round.
"With Andrea, I just wanted to open up to her straight away. She just had this energy where I wanted to tell her everything about me. I knew she wouldn’t judge me. I knew I could be honest with her and she would know where I was coming from. It was the weirdest audition, it was like a therapy session."
Wuthering Heights has been widely applauded for its fresh, non-conformist perspective that blows apart cliches associated with conventional period drama - and it's that very concept that drew Kaya to the project to begin with.
"Someone once told me that they couldn’t watch period dramas because everyone walks so slowly. And Andrea just threw that all out the window and went completely her own way about it and I really respected that," she says. "It felt like the start of something new for British cinema and I really wanted to be a part of that. Skins was part of a new generation of actors who hadn’t been to drama school, weren’t trained, who were very honest about who they were as people.
"And I see Andrea as this new generation of director who will pick someone because they like them not because they’ve got all these amazing films on their CVs and people will go and see the film if they’re in it. She’s not about that at all, she’s about getting people she believes in and she really likes. And that’s what I like… she takes risks and I wanted to be a part of that."
"I was like, no I’m no Gemma Arterton or Natalie Portman, I can’t do that"
Kaya's lack of formal training is somehow intrinsic to her appeal; she often references it (whether through pride or uncertainty) and sees herself and her Skins co-stars as "a new generation of actors."
"People assume you have to have a lot of money to get into film or you have to have parents who are in the industry already," she explains. "And I didn’t have any of that so I like the fact I took a different path. I quite like that it’s a different way."
It is undoubtedly this raw element that stood Kaya out from her competitors in the running for Wuthering Heights; as one reviewer put it, "considering her cast’s near-comprehensive lack of experience, Arnold has coaxed terrific performances from all of them."
In fact, Andrea was so determined to keep the adaptation fresh and new, she told the cast not to read the book or watch any adaptations ("so relieved," relates Kaya).
"She (Andrea) was like, I don’t want you to read it, I don’t want you to watch any adaptations of it, I want you to go into it completely open. I never read the full script – we got the lines the day before. I had no idea what was going on in the rest of the film. The first time I watched the film is the first time I saw it all."
With a string of glowing reviews to her name, Kaya now has the world at her feet and is keen to try out stage acting at some point in the future.
"I’d love to do stage – it terrifies me but I want to do it," she says. "I think I have to get to the point where I’m confident enough to do it and I’m not sure I’m at that stage yet. I’d have like a huge panic attack every night, I don’t think I’d be able to yet."
Watch this space, we say.
Wuthering Heights is in cinemas nationwide now
