Age: 22

From: Pontypridd

Where have we seen her before? You will have seen her strapped up in an old-fashioned frock in BBC drama Cranford in which she plays Sophy Hutton, the vicar’s daughter who falls for the dishy doctor. If you’re a fan of the theatre you may have also seen her as the Courtesan in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of the Comedy Of Errors, as Abigail Williams in The Crucible, or as the Mod Girl in the stage version of Quadrophenia, soon to be transferred to the West End.

Where will we see her this year? In teen flick Wild Child, alongside Natasha Richardson and Aidan Quinn. Her character Kate torments newcomer Emma, a rebellious American girl whose father sends her to an English boarding school. She says, “It was so fun as I got to learn La Crosse and have French lessons again, and then we filmed the last bit in LA so there was a Welsh accent in the middle of Malibu.” She’ll also star as Lindsay, ‘the promiscuous one’, in Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging directed by Gurinder Chadha of Bend it Like Beckham fame and starring alongside Alan Davis. She’ll then begin filming Easy Virtue, a film based on a Noel Coward play and starring Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas and Justin Timberlake’s latest love interest Jessica Biel.

On acting: “Acting gives me a confidence that I don’t have in real life. I get to say things as characters that I’d love to have the nerve to say in real life. You can be sexy or frightened one minute and the next, the director says ‘cut’ and you snap out of it,” she said. “I started acting in school plays and dances at 13 or 14 and then I did a drama GCSE and A-Level. I then went straight to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and would get my acting friends together to star in my boyfriend’s short films, because he was studying film studies at the same time.”

Hopes for the future: With two films in post-production and the third to be filmed in January, Kimberley is already working her socks off. She says, “Whether you’ve got work or not, acting is a constant worry so although every actor says it, if I can just keep working and loving it then I think I’m one of the luckiest people in the world.”

Magnificent because: She started filming for Cranford before she had even finished her degree, and despite being young, beautiful and told she’s talented by the likes of Dame Judi Dench and Imelda Staunton, the girl from Ponty remains entirely modest. She can flit between a chick flick and Dylan Thomas reading with ease and won’t even take a holiday because she is so determined to make it.

from ICWales