The next big thing everybody's Tonkin about

You’d assume her mother was a massive fan of classic English literature to have named her daughter Phoebe Jane Elizabeth, but the girl from suburban Sydney boasts an acting CV that steers clear of stuffy period dramas and sticks to Fantastical OTT Dramatics.

So far known for her roles as a free-spirited witch in The Secret Circle, a werewolf protagonist in The Vampire Diaries and its spin-off series The Originals, and a no-hope camper in Tomorrow, When The War Began, Tonkin is peppering her resume with a motley crew of characters in preparation for her major assault on Hollywood. Indeed, fantasy filmmakers would be crazy not to notice her cunning turns in two of the aforementioned series at least.

That’s not to say she couldn’t play the classical part if the offer came up. When Phoebe was four, she attended dance courses in classical ballet, and at 12 she began courses at the Australian Theatre for Young People – housed in Sydney’s rustic Wharf Theatre.

We’ll try to forget her representation of a mermaid in the rather shallow H20: Just Add Water (which followed the lives of three teenage girls who turn into mermaids – enough said), only to add that when we saw this girl go through certain growing pains in Packed To The Rafters and Home And Away, we just knew she’d be destined for big things on the world stage.

See for yourself when Phoebe appears in three key titles this year: The Ever After in which she trudges through more rites of passage opposite Rosario Dawson, a new-school influence in Stalker alongside über-cool Mariana Klaveno, and a rebellious rich kid whose school is taken over by criminals in Take Down.

It looks like those Jane Austin fantasies might be a while away yet, Mum.  Antonino Tati