Gugu Mbatha-Raw is Jude Law's Ophelia in Hamlet

Age: 26

Hometown: Witney, West Oxfordshire, not far from Oxford, where Mbatha-Raw was born the only child of a South African doctor (surname Mbatha) and English mother (surname Raw).

Currently: Cutting an Ophelia opposite Jude Law's Hamlet that is unusual (and commendable) in its stillness. This is a young woman whose grief seems to destroy her from within rather than prompting the more customary histrionic excess. Michael Grandage's modern-dress, austere production of Hamlet.

Taking Pride: Mbatha-Raw's first name is short for Gugulethu, which in Zulu means "our pride," and the 2004 RADA graduate should be proud of her career ascent in the five years since she left the prestigious London drama school. In her first year at RADA, she was one of several students who played Isabella in Measure For Measure, but Hamlet marks both her West End debut and her first professional Shakespearean gig in London. Was it hard to take on this play—and part—having first seen Hamlet performed with Ben Whishaw at the Old Vic and then with David Tennant at Stratford? "It's such a totally different thing when you approach a role from the inside, actually getting under the skin of a character,” she says, “rather than as a more objective audience member. I think you sort of have to discover it for yourself."

To Thine Own Self Be New: Mbatha-Raw speaks of her keenness to reinvent afresh a tricky role, not least because Ophelia disappears for a sizable portion of the play only to reappear having gone 'round the twist. By way of preparation, the actress took herself off for four days to travel to Copenhagen and on to Kronborg Castle, where this production will play several performances in late August following the London run. "It was freezing cold in February, and there I was on the battlements," she laughs, referring to the "child spirit" nature of enquiry that led her to take the trip in the first place. "You have to go through so many gates, and some of the walls are four inches thick." As far as pitching Ophelia's loss of reason, Mbatha-Raw maintains that "madness, I think, can be so many things to different people. We're told in the play that 'her mood will needs be pitied' and that hers is the cause ‘of deep grief,' so that's what I wanted to communicate. Maybe she hasn't got out of bed in a week or two." The actress' cue here, as elsewhere, came from her director, Grandage, who, she recalls, "told us, ‘Treat [Hamlet] like a new play; take nothing for granted. Be very clear with the storytelling, and approach it as if for the first time.'"

Trippingly On the Tongue: The actress had several auditions before landing the role, first before Christmas with Grandage and then again in January ("a kind of recall") where she and Law worked through the "get thee to a nunnery" speech. Was she nervous about what is clearly the highest-profile assignment to date for a performer whose subsidized-theater credits include David Hare's recent Gethsemane at the National and the Almeida Theatre staging, directed by Michael Attenborough, of Big White Fog? She laughs. "I'm sort of an optimist, really; I manage, I suppose, to take whatever fear there may be and turn it into adrenalin or excitement—unless I'm in total denial about the whole thing!" It helps to have what sounds like an especially close company. The day the production opened, for instance, happened to be Penelope Wilton's birthday, which meant a cake and the appropriate song to fete the show's Gertrude. "That gave everything a celebratory atmosphere for the rest of the evening."

A Law Unto Himself: In fact, Mbatha-Raw praises her twice Oscar-nominated leading man for his giving nature and flexibility on stage. "I'd actually seen Jude in Dr. Faustus at the Young Vic, so I knew his stage work, as well, and obviously it's every actor's dream to play Hamlet, which he has wanted to do for so long." Now that the play is up and running, Mbatha- Raw says, "Jude is really alive onstage and very playful; there are new things every night. Sure, there are certain parameters to what we do, but within that there is a lot of freedom." Not bad, then, for someone who began performing properly at age 16, appearing with the National Youth Music Theatre as Cinderella's mother and understudy Rapunzel in Into the Woods. "This has been fantastic for me," she says of the pinch-me moments she is having every night. "It's wonderful: I'm doing exactly what I want to do and loving every minute."