‘I want to play Keith Richards’

AGEING male rockers aren’t usually top of the list of dream roles for beautiful 21- year-old actresses, but then Skins star Kaya Scodelario is far from average. “I want to play Keith Richards,” says Scodelario, who’s appeared as Cathy Earnshaw in Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights and Dakota Fanning’s best friend in last year’s Now Is Good.

“Cate Blanchett played Bob Dylan in I’m Not There, so I could do Keith Richards. He looked quite feminine when he was younger.”

As she sinks back into an oversized sofa, pint of lager in hand, it’s hard to believe that someone as assertive as this rising actress ever faced a crisis of confidence. The Londoner, who recently appeared with the “lovely, motherly”

Jessica Biel in indie thriller Emanuel And The Truth About Fishes, suffered setbacks when her dyslexia went undetected while she was at school.

“People don’t realise how dyslexia affects your confidence and how brutal it can be,” says Scodelario. “People think you’re dumb and you know you’re not, it’s just how your brain works.”

She recalls getting the letters ‘G’ and ‘H’ confused in class: “The teacher said, ‘What’s this letter?’ I said, ‘It’s ‘G’’ and she said, ‘No, it’s ‘H’ you idiot’.”

“In my brain, as soon as she said it I knew she was right, but in my mind the image was ‘H’ so I believed I was seeing an ‘H’. It messed me up.”

Nowadays, Scodelario is pragmatic about the condition and took comfort from hearing about famous sufferers.

“There shouldn’t be a stigma. It should be talked about because it could potentially help people. I remember reading that Tom Cruise has dyslexia and straight away I felt better.

Being asked to memorise a script in one day when you have dyslexia is the same as having a broken foot and being asked to dance,” she adds. “You have to make exceptions for it.”

While school was tough, Scodelario found refuge in E4’s raucous teen drama Skins when, aged 14, she was cast as the enigmatic tearaway Effy Stonem.

Based in Bristol and centred on a group of teenage friends experimenting with sex, drugs and out-of-hand house parties, Effy proved to be one of the series’ most popular characters.

“When I said goodbye to Effy three years ago, I cried my eyes out,” says the actress. “It was really difficult for all of us to say goodbye, as it was our first job. It was hard to go into the world and start auditioning as real actors. And having to pay bills was rather scary too.”

But now Effy’s back, for a brief time at least, in a two-part drama called Skins Fire, to be followed by Skins Pure and Skins Rise, which focus on characters Cassie (Hannah Murray) and Cook (Jack O’- Connell) respectively, as they get to grips with being in their early 20s.

“They’re all trying to work out what it means to grow up, how you’re supposed to know when you’ve become an adult and what you should do with your life. It’s hard to work all that out when you’re twenty-something. I certainly haven’t,” says Scodelario, who admits her landmark birthday in March caused a “crisis”.

“At 21, you’ve come out of the craziness, maybe you’ve been to university, but now it’s time to get serious,” she says. “It’s the age where you make decisions about your life.

I’m going through that now.”

Despite, or perhaps because of, the character’s success, Scodelario admits she never thought she’d return to the role. “I was really nervous about bringing her back. It took a lot of convincing because she’s so precious to me and such an important part of who I am,” she says. “So I was really focused on making sure the scripts and the storylines were right.”

When we reunite with the Effy, she’s living in London and working as a personal assistant in the City.

“She’s just in limbo, with nothing really happening in her life,” says Scodelario.

But this is Skins, so it’s not too long before there’s high drama and Effy becomes embroiled in some dodgy dealings.

The actress finds watching her films a “terrifying”

prospect and took her mum and Shameless actor boyfriend Elliott Tittensor along to the premiere of Emanuel And The Truth About Fishes for some support.

“I want to pick and choose. A lot of young actors think you’ve got to do everything and lose your morals, but I don’t think that works in the long run,” she says.

“I’d never just want to be the pretty girl who the boys want to sleep with or the sister who pops in and says something rude. For me, even if it’s a small part, it has to be an important one, and one that’s there for a reason.”

• Skins Fire is on E4 on Monday and July 8; Skins Pure is on July 15 and 22; Skins Rise is on July 29 and August 5