There's definitely something bewitching about Natalie Dormer. She's the almond-eyed ingenue who stars opposite Sienna Miller and Heath Ledger in the swashbuckling romp Casanova, which opens next week. I saw the film in Venice (where director Lasse Hallstrom shot the movie). When Natalie, beautifully gowned and blonde locks swept up, glided gracefully across the screen with a sword in her hand, I turned to the stranger next to me and exclaimed:"Wow! Where did that girl come from?"

It took many months for my question to be answered. By the time we met recently for breakfast at the Soho Hotel, Disney studios had already snapped her up for a three-picture deal and one noted director told me he was desperately thinking about how he could get her into his next picture. Natalie was born in Reading, hometown of Kate Winslet and Kenneth Branagh, and learned how to handle a blade at the Webber Douglas Acting Academy in London. She studied ballet, jazz and modern dance from age three but stopped at 16. "I dabbled," she told me shyly.

As a child, she had a dressing-up box. "It was full of Mum's ghastly Eighties shoes, hand-me-down dresses, hats and gloves. I used to dress up and talk to myself. "I've been insane from a very early age," she joked. Her interest in the arts was also a way of coping with bullying at her school in Reading. "I was bullied a lot, mentally," she told me sadly. "When girls bully, it's very subtle and you can't define it. At least with boys the bullying is usually explicit and you can deal with it. It's psychological with girls."

Her humour helped her survive, and it serves her well in Casanova, where she displays an astute sense of comic timing. Initially, her role was smaller, but director Hallstrom added layers of burlesque to Natalie's character, and at one point she's so funny, she almost steals the film from Sienna. Luckily, the movie's big enough for both of them. One thing's for sure: we'll be hearing a lot more from Natalie Dormer.

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