From zero to hero is a short gallop on a war horse

What do Elizabeth Taylor, Brad Pitt and Kirsten Dunst have in common? The answer, as film buffs might know, is they all became overnight successes on the strength of one film. For Taylor it was National Velvet. Pitt broke through in Thelma and Louise. Dunst kick-started her career by kissing, ironically, Pitt in Interview with the Vampire.

Look up "overnight success" in the dictionary and you may now see 21-year-old Jeremy Irvine. The struggling English actor has gone from playing a tree on stage to leading Steven Spielberg's $70 million blockbuster epic War Horse. As polite as he is fresh- faced, Irvine says the only word he can use to describe his transformation from zero to hero is "surreal".

"I don't how to describe it other than it being completely surreal," Irvine says from Los Angeles, where the complete unknown has been wide-eyed and tongue-tied in the face of flashing bulbs and red carpet interviews.

"I don't know if it's going to be real for a long time. My dream was to be working as an actor, be that in little theatre shows or whatever. That I do it like this is beyond my dreams."

War Horse, which is receiving awards-season heat, is set during World War I and sees Irvine's poor farm boy Albert bond with a horse named Joey. When Joey is shipped to France and used to fight for the British and German armies, Albert begins a quest to find him and bring him back.

The handsome, emotional adventure is based on Michael Morpurgo's novel of the same name, also turned into a stage play. The film co- stars Emily Watson, David Thewlis and Benedict Cumberbatch.

How Irvine was plucked from obscurity and hand-picked by Spielberg is such an unbelievable story it's best to hear it, so to speak, from the horse's mouth.

"I was struggling," admits Irvine, who did a one-year drama course at a prestigious London acting school but wasn't accepted to its three year-course afterwards.

"I wasn't getting any professional work, so I got a cameraman friend to help me ! make a s how reel. I posted it to agents and was a bit cheeky in telling them it was all professional work. It paid off. A brave agent took me on and I got a part in a play with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London.

"OK, so the part was playing a tree with two branches and no lines but it was with Royal Shakespeare! My friends were taking the mickey out of me. But I was working on stage. I was around all these great British actors."

Things then went from playing a tree to moving quickly.

"They put me up for an audition in War Horse on just my second audition ever. At no point did I imagine I'd get this role. I wasn't even getting call- backs for commercials. I just thought of it as good audition experience.

"One day my agent, who loves playing tricks on me, called me for an audition. So I rushed into London and they put me in front of the camera. I turned over the script and read 'Steven Spielberg wants you to play Albert in War Horse'. That's how I found out I got the part."

It's impressive that Irvine reportedly beat Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) and Eddie Redmayne (the coming My Week with Marilyn) to the role. It's more impressive to think he was cast

despite never having ridden a horse.

"I'd never been on a horse, so that was another big thing to learn," he says. "But I'd never been in a film, so that (not riding) paled into insignificance compared with the rest of it."

Irvine did two months of lessons and managed to stay on and remain injury free. Once, however, Joey stood on his foot during an emotional scene. "The tears were real that time," he chuckles.

Though he embraces being an overnight success, the likable lad is not destined to be a one-hit-wonder.

He's already shot a new version of Dickens' Great Expectations, playing Pip alongside Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter. And he had the task of deflowering Dakota Fanning in the controversial film Now is Good, where she plays a girl who wants to lose her virginity before dying of cancer! .

"My next movie is in Australia called Railway Man with Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz, about the Japanese 'death railway' in Burma," he says excitedly.

"It's all a bit crazy. It's a huge privilege and I feel very lucky. If I can continue doing my hobby for my job, it would be awesome."

War Horse is now screening.