The men I liked growing up weren't the clever or popular ones

'The new Cameron Diaz': Laura Haddock's stock is set to soar with her next movie role
10 April 2012

With her bee-stung lips and sculpted cheekbones, Laura Haddock has been dubbed the new Cameron Diaz and her currency is about to rise further when she stars in the film version of cult E4 series Inbetweeners.

She plays the love interest of Will (Simon Bird), the bespectacled intellectual of the group, and Haddock says she can relate to what might, at first, appear to be an unlikely coupling.

"The men that I liked growing up were definitely not the clever ones or the popular ones. They were the intelligent, quirky ones," she says.

Haddock's boyfriend of a year is the promising British actor Sam Claflin, who played the young Logan Mountstuart in Any Human Heart. Their chaste courtship could be straight out of the opening scenes of the film in 1920s Oxford, as Haddock admits they corresponded for two months before even sharing a kiss.

"We'd only met in an audition room but we got to know each other the old-fashioned way, writing to each other."

The magnetism between them at that first meeting was immediately obvious. "I thought if he's good (at the part), I'm screwed. I already love him," says Haddock, 26. The feeling was mutual, she learned afterwards from her agent, who happened to represent Sam too. "Our agent Oliver told me Sam said, 'I've just met the girl I want to marry'."

Acting projects looked set to keep them apart for five months but they bumped into each other on the Tube platform at Turnham Green - where, again by coincidence, they were both living. They emailed every day for two months and eventually Sam asked Haddock to visit him in LA where he was filming Pirates of the Caribbean. "He met me at the airport and we just cuddled and kissed. We felt like we'd known each other for years. Still, today, it's like having my best bud with me."

Haddock's character, Alison, in The Inbetweeners Movie is out of Will's league with a grown-up Greek boyfriend but he piques her interest.

"Alison has a soft spot for him because she'd never allowed herself to like that boy before. And actually he's the kind of guy she can spar with."

The Inbetweeners Movie will make her a sex symbol but there will be no more men's magazine spreads for Haddock. "I really want to prove to people that I'm so much more than that," she says and is smarting still from an article - with sexy photos, natch - which appeared in FHM claiming she drank the journalists under the table.

Haddock's association with the lads' mags and her sexually liberated character, Alison, mean that press conferences are often dominated by questions about sex.

Haddock insists she did the provocative shoots to get her face known and create a buzz. It certainly worked, and roles followed as Amanda Redman's daughter Kacie in comedy drama Honest and an appearance in Terry Pratchett's The Colour Of Magic with David Jason and Christopher Lee.

Haddock was nervous about joining the cast of such an established TV show as Inbetweeners but says filming in Greece - where the four male characters are on holiday - broke the ice. "We became really good friends. We went to dinner every night. We all stayed in the same hotel."

Haddock thinks the film is the teen male equivalent of Sex and the City. "Bromance if it's well done and delicate is so lovely to watch - and it reminds me of my brother."

Growing up in Hertfordshire, Haddock decided to be an actress after seeing Hayley Mills in the film Pollyanna when she was six. She left school at 17, and moved to London to study drama at the Arts Educational School in Chiswick, where she still lives.

Recently Haddock appeared in When We Are Married at the Garrick Theatre but she is thrilled her next role will be in Sky1's Strike Back, filmed in South Africa, playing a kidnapped doctor with no make-up and scruffy clothes. "I was gagging to do some gritty drama where the girl doesn't have to be pretty."

She talks earnestly of learning her craft and has just filmed Noel Clarke's sci-fi horror flick, Storage 24, set in a storage unit in Hayes. In fact it was the costume designer of Storage 24 who found her the beautiful Dolce & Gabbana black mesh, off-the-shoulder gown she wore to the glamorous Inbetweeners Movie premiere.

Looking at her now, it's hard to believe that Haddock wasn't born to a life on the red carpet.

"You find a lot of actors had a slightly tricky childhood," she says, "They weren't the jock or the beautiful one. Maybe they were a little bit shy, and acting or music was their outlet. A lot of people blossom later."

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