While Romola was still at school she was spotted for her first role, as the younger Elizabeth in Last of the Blonde Bombshells.

Her big break came with the part of work experience girl Zoe in internet office drama Attachments. Loved from afar by sentimental Brandon and lusted after by Reece, the character's vulnerability was gradually eroded by her worldly workmates.

Romola played the long-lost daughter of ex-EastEnder Michelle Collins in bigamy drama Perfect in 2001.

She has also played the part of Kate in 2001 adaptation of Dickens's Nicholas Nickelby, in a starry production also starring Charlie Hunnam (Queer as Folk) and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot).

In 2002 Romola won the much coveted part of Gwendolen Harleth in Daniel Deronda, a confident young woman humbled by marriage to authoritarian husband, Grandcourt (Hugh Bonneville).

--BBC