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Earrings by Giovanni Raspini
British actress Jasmine Blackborow has established herself as a star of the screen. Recently announced as a lead in LEGENDS, the forthcoming Netflix series, where she stars opposite Steve Coogan. Audiences will also recognise her as Charly in The Gentlemen, Guy Ritchie’s Netflix series alongside Theo James. Here, she reflects on her journey, admitting she once believed acting wasn’t for people like her.
Jasmine Blackborow does not talk like someone who always assumed this would happen. There is no polished origin story, no childhood certainty neatly tied up in hindsight. Instead, there is a gentle disbelief that still sits alongside her success.
“I didn’t even know this was possible,” she says. “I didn’t think acting was for people like me.”
Growing up, she loved drama and school plays, but the idea of acting as a career felt abstract. Reserved for other people. Children who started young. Families with industry connections.
“I didn’t even know drama schools existed,” she admits. Confidence, more than talent, was the missing piece. “I was rubbish,” she says, laughing, meaning not ability but belief.
What she did have was imagination. A lot of it. “I was in my own world for way longer than was cool or acceptable,” she says. That instinct to play, she believes, matters more than anything else. Something no amount of training can really teach.
Her mother recognised her shyness early on and pushed her into dance. Not because she was exceptional at it, but because she needed armour. “I was this bubbly, fun kid at home,”
Blackborow recalls, “and then I’d go out into the world and just shut down.” Dance became a way of learning how to stand in front of people and appear confident long before it felt natural.
That adaptability defines her work now. Blackborow moves with ease between period drama and contemporary grit, between television, film and stage. “I love the bouncing around,” she says. “Each job calls on completely different skills. That’s what excites me.” The old stage versus screen debate makes her smile. “If I’m doing theatre, I want to be on screen. If I’m on screen, I miss the stage. I love it all.”
The past year has demanded exactly that elasticity. She leads LEGENDS, Neil Forsyth’s new number one Netflix drama, sharing the screen with Steve Coogan. She also returns for season two of The Gentlemen, where she plays Lady Charly Horniman, whose character arch takes a key role.
“It’s a celebration of Britishness,” she says of The Gentlemen. Of class, contradiction and collision, rather than a single polished version of wealth. The appeal, for her, lies in how the series moves between different echelons of society, allowing characters to exist in tension with one another rather than as fixed types. It is precisely that breadth, she explains, that keeps it creatively alive.
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Earrings by Danny Hall
Blackborow appeared in Moss & Freud as designer, Bella Freud. The film follows supermodel Kate Moss, played by Ellie Bamber as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery when acclaimed artist Lucian Freud offers to paint her portrait. Playing a real person, Jasmine admits, is terrifying. “People can just Google them,” she says. “They already have opinions.” The shoot was fast and unforgiving, often with just one or two takes. Impersonation was never the aim.
“I’m rubbish at that,” she says. Instead, she leaned into embodiment. Research. Physicality. Even sitting for portraits so she could understand what it felt like to be observed.
Watching it for the first time was nerve-wracking. Then she spotted Bella Freud’s sister, Esther, in the audience. “The colour drained from my face,” she says. The relief came afterwards. “She was so full of compliments. That meant everything.”
When scripts land now, her instincts are precise. She is drawn to stories that appear to be about one thing and quietly reveal themselves to be another. Work that challenges perception.
“Something has to jump off the page and hit me in the core, I don’t want to get typecast,” she says.
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Chain Necklace by Giovanni Raspini, Long Necklace by Luna Charles, Cuffs by Astley Clarke
Hand Bracelet by Bohomoon, Ring by Luna Charles, Earrings by Astley Clarke
LEGENDS was an immediate yes. Working with BAFTA-winning writer Neil Forsyth was a dream. After watching The Gold, she texted her agent mid-episode. When the script arrived, she knew what she wanted but the role nearly slipped away due to scheduling clashes with The Gentlemen. Producers had to negotiate dates across productions. “I don’t know how I would have chosen,” she says. “Luckily I didn’t have to.”
Then there is Netflix’s Pride and Prejudice, written by Dolly Alderton. Blackborow will play the pragmatic Charlotte Lucas, the closest friend of lead character Elizabeth Bennet, played by Emma Corrin. They will star alongside Jack Lowden, Olivia Colman, and Rufus Sewell who are set for the roles of Mr. Darcy, Mrs. Bennet, and Mr. Bennet.
She avoided the doom scroll and trusted the work, bolstered by feedback during filming that this Charlotte would be different. “I hope that’s a good thing,” she says. Working with Jamie Demetriou allowed her to lean into comedy and playfulness in ways audiences may not expect.
Off screen, life has shifted too. She has left London, something she calls one of the scariest decisions she has made, and one she does not regret. There is a house now. Floorboards to sand. A garden to tame. “I’ve never had a garden,” she says, delighted. “It feels like another form of creativity. I’m feeling fulfilled,” she says. “I’ve worked for a long time, and I really hope this is a moment of change in the kind of work I get to do.”
LEGENDS is currently streaming number 1 on Netflix.
Photographer
Saskia Lawson
Stylist
Jennifer Michalski-Bray
Make-Up Artist
Mira Parmar using Armani Beauty
Hair stylist
Ky Wilson using Babyliss pro and Evo Pro
