Born to run

Joanna Ward was just another teenager, studying for her BTEC and planning a holiday in Corfu, when she was plucked from Central TV's drama workshop and given the lead in a feature film. "I couldn't believe it," she smiles. "I ran around the house, then got a takeaway to celebrate."

The movie is Robert Bangura's The Girl With Brains In Her Feet, a breezy coming-of-age drama set in 1970s Leicester. Somewhere between a racy episode of Grange Hill and a teen magazine photo-story, the film follows 13-year-old, mixed-race schoolgirl "Jack" as she grows up on a red-brick, working-class estate, running between the conflicting demands of her single mother, teachers and friends.

Since Jack is the school's champion athlete, Ward cancelled her holiday and set to work training, running around her home town of Nottingham. The mixed-race adopted daughter of white parents, Ward says she "knew how Jack felt" as the daughter of a single white mother, but shared few of her experiences. "I'm a kid of the Eighties - things have changed a lot since then. I've always lived in a multi-cultural area, whereas Jack didn't really associate with people of her own race."

With a Seventies soundtrack of T-Rex, and full of long-haired hippy teachers, The Girl With Brains In Her Feet will certainly bring back memories for a generation of schoolchildren, but Jo Hodges' deft screenplay also features moments of timeless embarrassment: "I wouldn't say my first experiences of Tampax were like that," says Ward - who appears in the film walking like a cowboy.

In a couple of months' time, Ward finishes college and has decided to take a year out. "I'm going to take some time off and work full time in Jessops or behind a bar or something," she schemes. "So I'll have a bit of money when I apply for drama school. I still want to act, but I like dancing, too, and I want to do some modelling." Clearly a girl with plenty of brains in her head, and the talent to match.

'The Girl With Brains In Her Feet' is released on Friday (12 Jun)