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Sassy Sophie Kennedy Clark

HIT costume dramas such as Poldark and The Crown have propelled many young actresses to fame, but doll-faced Sophie Kennedy Clark is carving out a more rebellious route.

The former Burberry model, who has won a succession of small film roles, is becoming known for her refusal to conform. ‘I don’t find costume drama interesting,’ she tells me at the Victoria and Albert Museum summer party. ‘It’s holding England back. Let’s make contemporary, forwardthinking stuff about women.’

Born to musician Fiona Kennedy and Francis Clark, who comes from a wellknown Aberdeen fishing family, Sophie is tipped to become a household name when she stars alongside Victoria’s Jenna Coleman in forthcoming BBC1 series The Cry.

She will also be a star attraction at next week’s Edinburgh Film Festival, where Obey, in which she appears, is nominated for best film: ‘It’s about the London riots. My character is in a love triangle. She’s a middle- class bohemian in an open-relationship.’

Life, it seems, imitates art. Sophie, who lives in trendy Shoreditch, East London, reveals that she, too, has an unconventional love life. ‘I do a bit of everything. It’s not a jail-able offence anymore, so why not? I’m in a relationship with a guy, but it’s pretty open from where I’m at.’

Her rebellious side kicked in during her teens. ‘I got expelled from a lot of schools. I was creatively misunderstood.’

Unafraid of controversy, she appeared in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac: ‘I’ve been naked in films. I don’t really care. But it’s a very strange thing to grind up and down a perfect stranger at 8am in front of 12 others. I think: “Wow, if my friends could see me now.” ’