Steve Pratt discovers what Jaime Winstone feels about her striking role in Made In Dagenham and how she now knows that acting is in her blood.

JAIME Winstone isn’t a daddy’s girl any more.

The daughter of screen hard man Ray Winstone feels she’s proved herself as an actress and accepted on her own terms. Her first stage play last year and now an eye-catching role in new British movie Made In Dagenham – as a striking machinist who helped the campaign for equal pay for women – have taken her career to a new level. She’s not being chased by zombies or playing the tough teen.

“It wasn’t like me saying I want to play a role like Sandra, it just came along and just happened. I’ve matured a lot and that comes across with the characters,” she explains.

“I’m a woman now – and playing a nice girl instead of a messed up teenager. So it was a really, really great role to play.”

Have you seen the film? she asks.

Did you like it? I say yes, she says good. “I had the most amazing time.

It was one of those films where you think this is such a great job and great opportunity,” she enthuses Her enthusiasm for Made In Dagenham, the story of striking machinists at the Ford factory in Dagenham who influenced the women’s equal pay movement. As an East End girl, she knew about Dagenham motors and a little bit about the strike in 1968 (when, of course, she wasn’t even born).

“I knew roughly but I didn’t know what these women had done, the extent they took it to and that they’d been involved in changing the equal pay act,” says Winstone.

“I wanted my character to remain quite naive to it all because she’s struggling with her journey, the strike, her friends, what it’s about. She wants to go to the bright lights of modeling. She’s such a sweet character. When I first read the script I just thought I really like her, really relate to her.”

And, of course, she got to wear some trendy Sixties clobber. Those working class women were into fashion – they’d read the fashion magazines and then make their own versions of Biba dresses. “I was dying to nick my hot pants but couldn’t. They were completely archive and I couldn’t get my little hands on them,” she says.

“These women were so amazing.

They’d get up early to get the kids to school. They’d put their hair in rollers before they went to bed after a long day’s work, next day they’d put the lashes on, the face on, and then go and work in a factory. Now we can put a pair of jeans on and trainers and a hat and be completely asexual like that and still be like proud women.

“These women were really, really proud, they weren’t necessarily depressed women but very happy women with such a strong sense of pride that I was so in awe of.

“It describes the whole era for me – the explosion of politics, money, music, drugs. It was like putting it all in a blender and getting a sixties shake for me. It was really nice to dip into that world that I’d never been in before.”

The subject matter of Made In Dagenham made Winstone question whether she’s a feminist.

The answer is yes. “My mum and dad have brought me up to be an outspoken woman who treats and wants to be treated like an equal,”

she says. “There is still inequality in the workplace. I don’t know whether that’s based on a British tradition or if we’re just a little bit behind.”

She feels she’s been lucky with her roles, preferring to make a hardcore horror movie than a romcom.

As for roles she’d like to play, she follows the standard line of wanting to do good material, although adds, “Obviously it would be kickass to play a baddy in James Bond or something like that”.

There are more films in the pipeline and the idea of doing more theatre. Her stage debut last year – in Philip Ridley’s The Fastest Clock in the Universe – was a big step for her. “It was wow I can do that and really enjoy it at the same time rather than being this nervous wreck.”

Sometimes she’ll ask her dad for advice. “He watched my film in Toronto and said it was a really good bit of work and that’s a massive pat on the back for me. He advises me on decisions like any other dad does, just be yourself and don’t feel you have to say yes for any reason or no for any reason, just make your own decisions,” she says.

“My mum and my dad have guided me but let me do what I wanted to do. Like I didn’t even tell them I was going into acting so when I did it was like ‘Oh that’s good’.”

Appearing with her dad in a dark thriller is on the cards. “That will be nervewracking and exciting. I did work with him once in Vincent on TV. That was really cool but also terrifying. It was one of my first jobs ever. I played a maid. I don’t think we said anything to each other, we just shared a look.”

Doing theatre made her realise that she can be a comedy actress and paying to a live audience spurred her on. “It’s an immense pressure and that’s really good. You need that pressure to really deliver.

There’s always that first moment you walk on stage and your legs go and everything just clears from your mind and you think that’s it, I’ve forgotten everything and can’t do it. Then magic happens and it just comes out.

“It’s that pure raw buzz – that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. It reassured me I’m doing something I love. Although I’ve always known I’ve loved it, there has always been this thing, whether I like it or not, that you’re just acting because of your dad. It’s in my blood and now I can back it up with my own stuff. I feel like such a thespian, but it’s such a wonderful feeling.”

■ Made In Dagenham (15) opens in cinemas tomorrow