Natalie Dormer in V Magazine's "Next Wave of Superstars"

Our newly minted Cressida was just featured in V Magazine's "Next Wave of Superstars."

Photo by Nathaniel Goldberg Upon speaking to blue-eyed Briton Natalie Dormer, one instantly understands the constant chatter surrounding her. “It’s all great fun,” says the Game of Thrones actress of the skill that has landed her not only on the fantasy television series but also opposite the likes of Hollywood heartthrobs Brad Pitt and Michael Fassbender. “It was a dream couple of days work…just a joy,” she says of her time filming Ridley Scott’s The Counselor, penned by Cormac McCarthy and out in October. Dormer is being coy. The trained stage actress is an intellectual—she sees her preparation of a Jacobean text for a possible performance with the Royal Shakespeare Company as a fun mind game. “Good for the ol’ brain cells,” she says. “I suppose I’m a bit of a geek that way. It’s lucky that I enjoy reading, because as an actor you have to do a fuck load of it, whether it be scripts or research.” To prepare for her audition for Ron Howard’s upcoming action biopic, Rush—about the Formula One driver and playboy James Hunt, played by Chris Hemsworth—she researched Hunt’s wife, Suzy Miller, quite heavily. Though the role eventually went to Olivia Wilde, Howard issued a personal plea for Dormer to play a part in the film. “I approach each job as a challenge, and I’m always happy to be there, and sometimes you have these great experiences with people and you never know what is going to happen further down the line.” She recalls when she first came to America, to audition for director Alan Taylor. She didn’t get the part, but two months later she found herself in a casting room with Taylor and writer/creator David Benioff, reading for a new HBO show called Game of Thrones. “How fate twists and turns,” she says. KATE BRANCH