Former Sheffield student lands role as sexy new star of BBC TV drama Poldark

Ellise Chappell will burst onto TV screens this weekend in the third series of the period drama which has become a ratings smash for its bodice-ripping and smouldering scenes.

The 24-year-old will play Morwenna, cousin of Elizabeth Poldark Warleggan - and the character “finds herself in George Warleggan’s employment as a governess in order to support her sisters and widowed mother," according to the BBC.

And the sultry star found out she had landed the starring role while she was on her way to ask for her old job back as a barista at a London coffee shop.

She told the Daily Mail's You magazine: "I got the Poldark call as I was walking to the cafe in North London where I used to be a barista to ask for my old job back. I turned around and skipped home."

It is all a far cry from her time at the University of Sheffield - which she describes as "the toughest time" of her life.

She dropped out of her English literature/language degree at the University of Sheffield in her first year and said: "It was hard and I wasn’t happy.

"My friends were pursuing more academic careers and I thought I should, too. I’m quite impressionable like that."

She switched to Exeter to study drama which eventually led to TV parts in The Last Dragonslayer, a Sky TV movie shown on Christmas Day and New Blood, a BBC crime drama.

Series 3 of Poldark begins on BBC1 on Sunday.