Gemma Arterton

Gemma Arterton went from a stage debut in Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe in 2007 to a Bond film in 2008, which is about as fast as a British career moves. St Trinian's was the screen debut, Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace won her an Empire Award for Best Newcomer, and the studios then spent the next few years casting her as the beautiful object at the centre of expensive things: Clash of the Titans, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

She is much better with a hard edge on her. The Disappearance of Alice Creed, made in 2009 between the blockbusters, is a three-hander kidnap thriller in which she is physically restrained for a good deal of the running time and still ends up controlling the film. Byzantium and The Girl with All the Gifts both give her something to be furious about. Tamara Drewe and Gemma Bovery use the other half of it, comedy played dead straight, which she is quietly very good at.

The interesting part of her career is what she did next, which was to stop. Since roughly the middle of the 2010s the choices have been British, small and largely writer-driven: Their Finest, Summerland, Vita and Virginia, Funny Woman, The Critic, alongside steady stage work. The King's Man in 2021 is the one big-budget return, and she is the best thing in it.