JACK O'CONNELL

Jack O'Connell has done well considering he fell into acting just to impress a girl. After a two-year stint with the Carlton TV workshop (he got in, the girl did not), he had his first break with his performance as an adolescent rapist on the ITV soap The Bill when he was just 15. That caught the eye of Shane Meadows who created a small part for him in This Is England. Since then, O'Connell has been edging his way into the spotlight. He won plaudits for his compelling stage performance in Fiona Evans' Scarborough at the Royal Court earlier this year and will soon be seen in James Watkins' Eden Lake, playing the leader of a gang of teenage thugs who terrorise a holidaying couple played by Kelly Reilly and Michael Fassbender. He has just come off the ITV series Wuthering Heights opposite Tom Hardy and fellow Star of Tomorrow Charlotte Riley (see p19) and is soon to start work as one of the leads in Channel 4's third series of Skins.