Game of Thrones estrela Natalie Dormer compares Margaery Tyrell to Kim Kardashian 

Natalie ascribes much of her high profile to the phenomenon that is Game of Thrones

During the first year of her acting career in 2005, Natalie Dormer had to take office temping jobs to make ends meet. Now she has her pick of plum roles on both sides of the Atlantic. In 10 short years, she has turned her life around.

She has headlined in three of the biggest entertainment franchises of the last decade: playing the scheming queen Margaery Tyrell in the world’s most popular TV series,

cycle of movies, and Henry VIII’s ill-fated second wife Anne Boleyn in the global hit show

. Having a lead role in just one of these productions would have been a stunning achievement for most performers, but starring in all three almost defies belief.

But despite all her success, 33-year-old Natalie remains appealingly modest.

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Perhaps that is down to the struggles she had to overcome at the outset of her career. Natalie says now that her period of office work was the “best lesson” she could have had, as it taught her never to get above herself or fall into complacency. The actress, who also played the Duchess of York in 

, Madonna’s film about Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, has stayed close to her old friends who are not in showbiz. Have they helped Natalie keep her feet on the ground?

“As Shakespeare said, our job is to hold the mirror up to nature, to represent real people on the street,” she says. “If you get too wrapped up in the blazing starlight of celebrity, you don’t really have the right to portray people on the street any more.

“Most of my closest friends have nothing to do with the industry and I like that. I like that it’s, ‘Nat, stop talking about what you did the other day with Madonna – let me tell you what happened to me today at the office.’ I think that’s very healthy.”

Natalie alongside her Tudors co-star Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Natalie is gifted with striking features, eyes you could easily lose yourself in and lustrous hair. But there is far more to her than unimpeachable glamour. In addition, Natalie has a personality that radiates charisma, she possesses a very sharp mind – it’s no surprise to learn that she was offered a provisional place at Cambridge – and has an acute sense of humour.

For instance, she describes Margaery as, “The most modern of all the characters in

. She is very much a PR genius. Now she would be one of those It girls, tweeting and Instagramming their latest dresses and raising money for orphanages by running half-marathons. She’d be rivalling Kim Kardashian for numbers of followers on Twitter and Instagram!”

In a similar vein, when I ask if next year she is going to marry her long-standing fiancé, the Irish film director Anthony Byrne, Natalie replies: “I’m hoping he gets to direct me first. That’s a box we haven’t ticked yet. We’ll do that before getting married, just to be sure. It’s the safest option!”

Natalie, who has also starred in such major productions as

, is equally astute when it comes to discussing her latest project.

Natalie with Jack Gleeson in Game of Thrones

She is playing the title role in BBC2’s one-off period drama, 

. A true story based on a book by historian Hallie Rubenhold, the film centres on the astonishing courage of Lady Seymour Worsley, an aristocratic woman who rejects convention and fights for her right to independence in 1782 England.

After enduring several years of abusive marriage to Sir Richard Worsley, Seymour can finally stand it no more and runs off with his best friend Captain George Bisset. Infuriated, Richard resolves to bankrupt and humiliate the couple by suing George for the then-astronomical sum of £20,000 in compensation.

Rejecting the idea that a wife should be considered her husband’s property, Seymour stands up to Richard’s bullying behaviour and combats him every inch of the way in court. She is a woman way ahead of her time who simply refuses to be treated as just another one of her husband’s possessions.

The case becomes a cause célèbre and Natalie sees many parallels between then and now. “Are there echoes of today in this story? One hundred per cent yes. Seymour used the power of the press to battle her husband in a way that isn’t much different from what happens now. At that time, the ideas of the tabloids and celebrity as we know them were just forming. The battle between Richard and Seymour can be identified as one of the first scandalous public divorce cases of the time.”

Natalie, who grew up in Reading with her mother, stepfather and two siblings and now lives in London, continues that she is in awe of Seymour’s bravery.

“Is she a heroine? She’s my heroine. It took an awful lot of guts to fight her husband. She wasn’t perfect, but she was very courageous, and in that way I think she was a heroine.”

As she looks back over the glittering last decade, Natalie is once again self-effacing, ascribing much of her high profile to the phenomenon that is

The actress, who studied at the Webber Douglas drama school in London alongside

has helped us all. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in that cast who hasn’t had a great springboard from the show. It’s given us all a boost. We bring something to

brings something to us. It’s the perfect marriage – unlike Seymour’s!”

Pushed further, Natalie attributes her success to sheer hard work. “The writer Malcolm Gladwell said you can’t become good at something until you have practised it for 10,000 hours. I’ve done that now. I’ve been in the industry 10 years, and by now I know what makes me tick and the sort of projects I’m interested in. I’m fortunate that I’ve started to be able to capitalise on the body of work I have.”

Natalie’s fans, too, are quick to recognise her success. “People come up to me all the time and want to talk about lots of things –

,” she says. “I’ve worked with a broad cross section of brilliant writers and directors. Long may that continue! I’ve got my fingers crossed.

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