T

here is a scene in the new film On The Basis Of Sex in which a young woman walks up the steps of Harvard University, alone among a sea of men.

The woman was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who went on to be the second ever female justice to sit on the US Supreme Court, played in the film by British star Felicity Jones, and the year was 1956.

But for Jones, who is best-known for her role in the Star Wars film Rogue One and her Oscar-nominated turn in Theory Of Everything, the scene still rang true in the present day.

“Absolutely,” she says emphatically. “I grew up working in British television and I was often on a film set in the minority so I absolutely empathised with that feeling.

“And what we need to see is that needs to shift.”

Now 35, Birmingham-born Jones got her start in the children’s TV series The Worst Witch and its spin-off Weirdsister College, before roles in the mini-series Servants, Cape Wrath and The Diary Of Anne Frank, as well as a turn in Doctor Who.

Her big screen break came with the films Like Crazy and Chalet Girl and since then she has had starring roles in the second Amazing Spider-Man film, book adaptation A Monster Calls, and the Da Vinci Code sequel Inferno, not to mention Rogue One and The Theory Of Everything.

Now she’s playing Ginsburg – following the pioneering lawmaker, when she was a struggling attorney and new mother, in her fight for equal rights for men and women.

“What is interesting with this film, is how important it is that the men and women stand alongside each other encouraging that shift.

“We do need to do it together in order to make sure that we do have 50-50 in these situations.”