Vanessa Kirby: Acting is about what’s inside… not your looks

Rising star: Vanessa Kirby talks about her early doubts
Jane Hobson/REX
Rashid Razaq13 January 2016
The Weekender

Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for exclusive competitions, offers and theatre ticket deals

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

Rising star Vanessa Kirby is set for busy year that will include making her Broadway debut, as well as film and television roles.

However, she has made a surprising revelation — she once feared she was “not beautiful enough” to make it as an actress and felt “scruffy” compared to the stars she saw on screen.

Kirby, 27, has overcome those early doubts to win roles including Princess Margaret in the Peter Morgan-scripted Netflix series The Crown, alongside Claire Foy as a young Queen Elizabeth and Matt Smith as Prince Philip.

She will appear as F Scott Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda with Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Guy Pearce in Michael Grandage’s film Genius, as well as playing a cyborg anti-heroine in dystopian thriller Kill Command.

Latest film reviews

1/99

Kirby, who grew up in Wimbledon and is the daughter of a surgeon and a founder of Country Living magazine, will be in a production of Uncle Vanya at the Almeida Theatre next month with her friend Jessica Brown Findlay.

Shortly after that, she will head to Broadway where she and Gillian Anderson will reprise their roles in the Young Vic’s acclaimed production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Despite her success, Kirby said she once thought she would not make it because of her looks.

She told ES magazine: “When I first started doing screen work I thought, ‘I’m not beautiful enough for this profession — all the actresses I watch on screen are gorgeous and beautiful goddesses, but I’m just a scrawny, scruffy girl from south-west London.’

“But you have to really empower yourself… what your insides are doing, your outside reflects and what you give to yourself you can give to others.”

Kirby, who studied English literature at Exeter University, said she used meditation and yoga to keep “grounded”, but mostly had stopped caring so much.

She said: “It’s the same with my friends, like Jess [Brown Findlay], Holly Grainger and Lily James — they don’t give a shit.”

Read the full interview in this week's ES Magazine.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in