So who the hell is Doctor Who’s new leading lady Jenna-Louise Coleman and where did she come from?
Jenna-Louise Coleman has just been announced as Doctor Who’s new assistant, but who is she and what has she done before to deserve such a high profile role next to Daisy Lowe’s on-off boyfriend?
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Jenna is probably best known for her part in ITV soap Emmerdale, in which she played teenage lesbian Jasmine Thomas. She landed the part in 2005, while she was still auditioning for drama schools and lived in a shared flat with co-star Julia Mallam (Dawn Woods) during filming.
Her character was involved in a dramatic storyline which saw Jasmine murdering her boyfriend Shane Doyle, played by Paul McEwan, after he tried to rape her.
ITV
ITV
At the time Jenna told the Mirror she intentionally didn’t do any research for the scene because she wanted her approach to be natural: “I didn't want any preconceived ideas of how I was going to play it. But I watched loads of murder movies like Shallow Grave and Monster, which helped me realise how easy it is for things to get out of control when you're backed into a corner and scared."
She also revealed that she didn’t like to watch herself on the soap and wouldn’t be tuning into her biggest scenes to date: “I've no idea what I did. I hate seeing myself on screen but my grandma will be glued," she explained. "She watches every episode and always says, 'Your hair looked nice'.”
Getty
Getty
In 2007 Jenna was nominated for Best Newcomer at the British Soap Awards and Most Popular Newcomer at the National Television Awards. Two years later she had more industry nominations under her belt, including Best Actress and Sexiest Female at the Soap Awards and had also won a part in the BBC’s Waterloo Road as tough school girl Lindsay James.
BBC
Jenna herself went to school in Blackpool, where she was born, and something of the swat by all accounts – getting straight A’s in her A-levels and being crowned Head Girl. Despite this she chose to go to drama school instead of University and has spoken in the past of her regret at missing out on life at Uni.
She’s probably not regretting that now though. Since Waterloo Road, Jenna’s appeared in BBC Four’s adaptation of Room At The Top as Susan Brown and in 2011 made her big screen debut in Captain America: The First Avenger.
ITV
Jenna will next be seen at the end of this month in ITV’s four part mini-series of Titanic, playing Annie Desmond, who Jenna describes as the ship’s “cheeky little monkey”.
That’s until she sidles up to Doctor Who in all her brunette, cutesy glory for the Christmas Special anyway.
