perfect opposites; In Starter for 10, Alice Eve plays blonde bombshell to Rebecca Hall's brainy brunette.(Interview)

Byline: Esther Selsdon

Alice Eve and Rebecca Hall were clearly destined to become performers. Despite the fact that people keep wandering into their karaoke booth with playlist suggestions and boxes of sushi, and Alice confesses that "the idea of doing karaoke fills me with dread," both actresses are still raring to belt out a few eighties classics from Kate Bush or the Smiths. In fact, they could be recording the sound track of Starter for 10, the sparkling new English romantic comedy about the love trials of a Bristol University quiz team. It's Rebecca's first movie experience and Alice's second, and in it they play a pair of contrasting English students vying for the attention of an awkwardly appealing student (young British darling James McAvoy). Alice is the ritzy, ditzy blonde ("Straight in with the stereotypes," she cackles) and Rebecca the quick-witted Jewish brunette.

But the contrasts between the two run very shallow indeed. Until just a few years ago, both studied English (Rebecca at Cambridge, Alice at Oxford). And both inevitably gravitated toward acting: Rebecca's parents are ...