Rose Williams, 25, is set to take Michelle Dockery’s period drama crown after being cast as the heroine of ITV’s latest Jane Austen adaptation, starring opposite Downton Abbey’s Theo James and Love Actually’s Kris Marshall in Sanditon, Austen’s final and incomplete novel before her death in 1817.

Prior to her on-screen career, the Londoner worked as a costume assistant on E4’s Misfits and David Walliams’s BBC comedy Big School, before turning her hand to acting in Reign, Medici and Curfew. More recently, Williams has been cast in UK supernatural thriller The Power.