[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or me, everything depends on the story.” Sophie Kennedy Clark is an actor whose passion reverberates through her strident Scottish voice. Rising to prominence in Stephen Frear’s uplifting Magdalene drama Philomena, and soon to join an impressive ensemble cast in Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, Kennedy Clark is a rare breed. An up-and-coming young actress, she not only holds a deep seated reverence for the female pioneers who came before her but actively examines her position as a woman in film.

Whether dressed in the drab costume of 1950s Ireland or windswept and mackintosh-clad at a Mario Testino shoot, Kennedy Clark is certainly in possession of a remarkable beauty. Doe-eyed and porcelain skinned, there is an almost childlike cast to her features that makes her portrayal of institutionalised young mother, Philomena, all the more poignant. Yet she was quick to dismiss any suggestion of a modeling career. “I’m 5ft 6in and far too mouthy to have any chance in that industry,” she laughed. Cast as part of an “actor couple” for the 2011 spring/summer Burberry campaign, her brief foray into fashion was concurrent with the premiere of Single Father, the BBC mini-series starring David Tennant that gave the then 20-year old her breakthrough role.

Although the part of Tennant’s daughter, Tanya, was her first professional credit Kennedy Clark’s world has always been steeped in the tradition of performance. Growing up as the granddaughter of Scots Gaelic singer Calum Kennedy and the child of his actress daughter Fiona, it would be foolish to assume that such a creative pedigree had no influence on the young Sophie. “My household was always full of music and storytelling and movies and wonderful people,” she conceded. Almost in the same breath, however, she clarified that her own entry into artistic ranks was entirely self-motivated. “I’ve always loved to write and I’ve always loved to read. Storytelling in any kind of capacity was something I knew from a very young age that I was going to do and it just so happened that film has spurred that fascination in me.”

The image that currently defines Sophie Kennedy Clark in the public consciousness comes from Philomena, which opened in November to overwhelming critical praise and is hotly tipped in the 2014 Oscar race. While Judi Dench’s performance as the titular Irish matriarch has been singled out for its masterful rendering of the tragic and comic aspects of the character, it is Kennedy Clark who Frears entrusts one of the film’s most emotionally demanding scenes — that of the forcible separation of Philomena and her young son Anthony. Both physically and symbolically contained by the gates of the convent, the young Philomena, hair shorn, screams for her child through the iron bars of the grate. “It was one of those things where you know you’re not just doing this for you and for your career or because it’s a great story,” Kennedy Clark explained when asked about the challenges of taking on such a role, “You are doing somebody else and many other nameless women justice by performing something that is so horrific.” She credits the motivation behind her performance to her conversations with Philomena Lee, the Limerick woman whose characterization in journalist Martin Sixsmith’s 2009 account forms the basis for the film. “It was the first time I’d felt so strongly for a role because I’d been around Philomena so much,” Kennedy Clark continued, “It was completely heart-wrenching to do at the time because the scenes I was living out are scenes that shaped her life and things that she thinks upon and goes over in her head everyday. They still affect her. I just wanted to make it as honest and true as I could.” Indeed, she revealed that despite not collaborating together directly, it was through Philomena Lee that she and Dench were able to create cohesiveness between their respective versions of the character. “Judi plays Philomena fifty years down the line from me so she’s a very different woman who has kept this secret and as a result, has evolved into the woman that we see, that Judi plays. Whereas my bit was at a very raw stage of life where these girls had no access to information and were very much at the whim of the Church.”

Despite the exposure she has received as maligned, innocent Philomena, Kennedy Clark is not afraid to take on something altogether more controversial. Photographed in character as late 70s feminist “B”, Kennedy Clark’s poster for the upcoming Lars von Trier film, Nymphomaniac, shows her mid-orgasm, her long hair strategically falling over naked shoulders. Details of the divisive Danish director’s next project are still thin on the ground but the recent release of clips von Trier terms “appetizers” have disclosed that the film will be a series of vignettes chronicling fifty years of sex in the life of a nymphomaniac played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. The explicit nature of pre-released scenes from the Shia LaBeouf segment, named The Little Organ School, and news that von Trier will be digitally superimposing the genitals of body doubles onto his actors to create the air of unsimulated sex, suggest that Nymphomaniac will stoke up a moral and critical furor akin to that provoked by the director’s 2009 film Antichrist. Did Kennedy Clark have any reservations about taking such a role at this early stage in her career? Describing it as “not a seedy and sexy film”, she was keen to separate von Trier’s vision from associations with the pornographic. “The porn industry as we know it kind of objectifies women. This is showing a woman who has an addiction. People with addictions will go to great lengths to fulfill them, whether it’s alcoholism or drug abuse. So it’s going to be an uncomfortable watch for a lot of people.”

How would Kennedy Clark compare working with “national treasure” Frears to “film maverick” von Trier? Polar opposites in terms of theme and style, she drew a parallel through their mutual commitment to strong female characters. “Stephen Frears and Lars von Trier are both filmmakers that give women a power platform. They make films with huge respect for women . . . Lars’s characters are fictional, Stephen makes a lot of films about women who were real people but you know that with both of them you are in such safe hands.” Speaking about the current state of female representation, she is optimistic. “I think there has been a real awakening to the woman not just being the damsel in distress,” she mused. “It almost feels like a revolution for females in the acting world.” Her idea of a meaty part for a woman is “someone who is really strong and isn’t walking around in their pants, or the girl next door”. Yet she remains critical of the continued duress placed on actresses to present a veneer of aesthetic perfection. “I have felt pressure from the industry to either appear a certain way or wear things that I would never usually wear…You do feel like people are making these flash judgments on you that, at the end of the day, mean very little and have nothing to do with the project you’re doing. We’re not all judging men by what they’re wearing.”

Although she does not have internet or a television in her flat, Kennedy Clark displays a great respect for the veteran actors she has come to know both through and behind the screen. “I’m getting a bit of a reputation for only working with Sirs and Dames” she joked, referring to her Philomena co-star Dame Judi Dench and Sirs Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley, who feature in upcoming thriller, Eliza Graves. “If you can get to the level that these actors are at and still have no kind of hierarchy over either younger people or people in the crew, that is something I want to retain throughout my career — just being a really great person to be around and muck in with everyone as much as being able to give a damn good performance.” Many of her greatest role models are women. Throughout the interview she cited the work of Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett and Vivien Leigh as formative influences but it is the career of fellow Scot Tilda Swinton that Kennedy Clark is most keen to emulate. “I just think she has made some of the most exceptional choices in the arthouse world and also in the commercial world. If I can take a leaf out of her book and film choices, I know that would make me incredibly happy.” Standing on the precipice of what looks like a fascinating career, Kennedy Clark is certainly a woman to watch.