The ascent

Galway girl Nora-Jane Noone was destined for a career in science - instead she ended up being hunted by psychotic nuns and underground cave dwellers, before showing up in stirring new Irish vigilante drama Savage. She tells  TARA BRADY how it happened

JEEPERS, CREEPERS, where'd she get those peepers? Dressed in impossibly fly cerise pumps and blinking her big, heart-stoppingly beautiful eyes, it's easy to forget that Nora-Jane Noone was supposed to be a scientist.

"It was a toss up between microbiology and marine ecology," says the 26-year-old, "but that's roughly where I might have ended up." Fate, however, had determined that the Galway girl would not follow the rest of her siblings into various fields of scientific endeavour.

Following a tip from her cousin, a London-based agent, the 17-year-old Nora-Jane turned out for a 2003 audition for Peter Mullen's The Magdalene Sisters. She not only bagged the role of Bernadette - a pretty teen imprisoned by the nuns for the sin of turning too many heads - but a heap of rave reviews and awards besides, including best actress in an ensemble role at the British Independent Film Awards.

"It was a brilliant first job," says Noone. "I love feisty characters. I love making the great comebacks. And Bernadette wasn't just hardened, she was a young girl. There were a lot of dimensions for me to think through." The movie, meanwhile, would claim the prize for best film at the Venice Film Festival and inspire a frenzy of media activity.

"I hadn't really done anything before," she says. "I was Jan in Greaseat school, and Joseph in the nativity play; just one of the perks from being at an all-girls school. I knew I liked acting, but it was really just a way of expressing myself. I was always shy, so as a teenager I loved am-dram productions and school plays as a way of speaking out and hiding at the same time. And then I'm at Venice on a red carpet with all these cameras going. It was crazy."

Crazy is something of a watchword in the Noone canon. Under the direction of Neil Marshall, the young star has been chased by ravenous cannibals in Doomsdayand hunted by psychotic underground cave dwellers in The Descent. It's an odd sort of existence for a woman who was sensible enough to finish her science degree in UCG before plunging into acting on a full-time basis.

"But that's the great freedom of acting," she says. "You're travelling to different places and inhabiting different people. Everything is always fresh. And I love the jump between something like The Magdalene Sisters, which was this critically acclaimed, serious drama, to sitting in a freezing pool with a prosthetic bone poking out and a big bag of blood."

Thanks to Marshall, the starlet has rarely been short of offers to play scream queens and final girls. In 2008, she took the lead alongside Ingrid Pitt in Beyond the Rave, an internet serial and a return to the fray for Hammer horror. She has, additionally, been pursued by a bog monster in Brendan Foley's Assault of Darknessand dodged killer plants in last year's BBC reworking of John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids.

"The horror movies happened accidentally," she says. "I suppose after The DescentI got a lot of offers in that vein and found a lot to work with. In terms of watching movies, I've always preferred psychological horror like The Innocentsor The Orphanageto the physical stuff. But making the bloody stuff is a great laugh. My mam and my auntie have suggested that I do some more happy movies. They're very supportive, but I don't think they're too pleased about seeing me getting killed over and over again. Then again, when you like delving deep as an actor, you do tend to end up in some dark and scary places." She laughs. "Or maybe it's just the west of Ireland gothic showing through."

Noone has, to date, alternated mainstream roles on Coronation Streetand Holby Citywith more experimental fare. In that spirit she frequently returns from London - her base camp of six years - to appear in independent Irish productions.

"Profile doesn't matter so much to me," she says. "I recently did a short for Cathy Brady called Short Change, which I loved. There are a lot of really talented Irish people around at the moment. So when you come back to do an Irish project, it's a great experience. There are really interesting stories, and new things coming out of here at the moment. Just look at Savage."

Savage, a stirring new vigilante drama from debuting director Brendan Muldowney casts Noone as a potential saviour for its damaged anti-hero. The film, which hinges on a remarkable performance by Darren Healy, has already sparked a great deal of interest on the festival circuit ahead of its Irish release.

"There were scenes opposite Darren that were very intense to shoot," she says. "It was one of those films that can be very hard to leave behind at the end of the day. You have to work at shutting down. You have to tell yourself, 'Phew, I'm going home now for a nice bath and a long walk'."

She has, to date, resisted the blandishments of Hollywood in favour of proximity to family and friends. "I don't mind going over there for work," she says. "But I'd never go over on a wing and a prayer. I love going home. I love that people say 'Oh are you getting too big for your boots, are you? We'll have to knock you down a peg or two.' It's great that people feel they have something to slag you about."