Jessie Cave

Age: 22 

Hometown: A true Londoner. Cave was born the second of five children—her youngest sibling is 11—into a "very very untheatrical family." Both her parents and two of her brothers are doctors. 

Currently: Making an astonishingly accomplished professional stage debut as the precocious Thomasina Coverly in David Leveaux’s revival pf Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia at the Duke of York's Theatre. She shares the stage with a sterling company that includes Samantha Bond, Neil Pearson, and Sir Tom's own son, Ed. Was it odd speaking this dramatist's words in the company of his thespian son? "That was never ever an issue,” Cave explains, “partly because Ed and Tom Stoppard are genuinely the nicest people I've ever met." 

Just For Starters: It falls to Thomasina to speak the opening lines of the play: "Septimus, what is carnal embrace?" "What other play begins with a line like that?" laughs Cave, who did several auditions, including one opposite Dan Stevens, already plucked to be Thomasina's randy, good-hearted tutor, Septimus Hodge, before being chosen for the part at the end of last year. "Arcadia is such a quirky play, so brave, and there are so many avenues in it which are so different that you can't really summarize it in any way." The task, accomplished brilliantly in this production, is to give equal weight to both head and heart. "Thomasina is very demonstrative," Cave says of a hormonally and intellectually rabid teenager whom we last glimpse on the eve of her 17th birthday." 

Anything But Lonely: Cave points to Thomasina's innate ebullience and the way in which her need to waltz—and everything that implies—coexists with an insatiable capacity for learning. "It's nice to play someone who's slightly alone, yes, but not melancholy, because she has Septimus and she loves that relationship. She's so happy to be with him." At the same time, Cave allows for the anomaly of so gifted a child/woman "growing up in a house with her mother going off with everyone and Septimus having these ‘embraces' out in the gazebo. Thomasina craves affection and experience, because she sees everyone else having it apart from her." The actress laughs. "It's not been a normal upbringing." And although Cave's own upbringing sounds very happy, she, like Thomasina, is clearly her own person, having dropped out of Manchester University before finishing her first term. "The student lifestyle really isn't for me. It would be fine if I were there for some purpose, but to be honest I went there because it was what I was expected to do. It could be seen as slightly wayward, but it worked out so brilliantly the other way." Cave is instead semi-enrolled on an art course at Kingston University, where, she says, "they allow me to go back whenever I want." 

Bespectacled Beauty: In a character decision that seems both witty and absolutely right, this Thomasina wears glasses: Whose idea was that? "I wear glasses in my own life because I'm short-sighted and I was going to wear contacts in the play when Tom and David said, ‘We want you to wear glasses because we love that'—though obviously I don't wear them while I'm waltzing." 

The Genius Factor: Was she daunted by the sheer heft of so formidable yet beautiful a play? "The more I read [Arcadia], the more I thought, this is just huge; there's so much in it,” Cave says, “but I can't say I was actually scared. I'm not scared of Thomasina, and I was reading the script totally from a Thomasina point of view." What about the gauntlet thrown down by playing a genius? "I don't think I'm quite a genius," Cave replies deadpan, "but I'm proud to be playing one; my mum is very proud." 

Pottering Around: In what is clearly her breakthrough summer, Cave will soon be seen playing Lavender Brown in the new Harry Potter extravaganza, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on which she spent six months filming on and off. "I read the book before I knew I was going to be in it and thought, ‘This character is really annoying,' but when it came to playing Lavender, I found such a huge heart in her: she's this very modern curly-haired blonde who is in love with Ron and is just so alive with all these hormones. She just wants to love someone and becomes truly obsessed with Ron; she's a great rival to Hermione in a way." The actress also speaks of Potter main man Daniel Radcliffe as a "brilliant example" for her own life/work approach to being. "Daniel didn't do A-levels and hasn't gone to drama school or university and yet he's more thirsty for knowledge and experience than anyone I know: he has a voice coach or is studying Anglo-Saxon poetry, or whatever." Cave takes a comparable view: "Drama school is brilliant but in the end it's about paying respect to acting and learning about it; it's all about teaching yourself." Sounds like there's a bit of Thomasina in her, after all.