Bella Maclean has completely disappeared from her window of our Zoom call. When, from a holiday in Philadelphia, she bobs excitedly back into view of her computer’s camera, wearing a Breton-stripe jersey, chunky silver hoop earrings and a powder pink and white Phillies baseball cap, she’s proudly clutching a cornflower-blue mesh Adidas & Wales Bonner SL76 trainer. “I just have to show you these because I love them so much,” the 26-year-old actor enthuses of the viral retro style, her dirty-blonde bob and dark brows calling to mind a ’90s-era Patsy Kensit or Liz Hurley.
“I’m so specific about trainers. I rarely wear anything except Nike Cortezes in every single colour.” I have a strong hunch that Maclean will soon have a queue of high fashion labels desperate to dress her.
After a breakout role as Jem, the straight-talking, horse-riding love interest of Adam in the farewell series of Sex Education , Maclean had critics raving when she made her National Theatre debut as the poverty-stricken Bella Wilfer in London Tide , an adaptation of Dickens’s 19th-century novel Our Mutual Friend , this past April. And now the Guildhall graduate is set to star in what promises to be the most talked-about show of the season: the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s cult ’80s literary romp Rivals . Maclean takes on Taggie O’Hara, the daughter of TV talk show star Declan O’Hara (Aidan Turner), who becomes amorously entangled with bad-boy ex-champion show jumper and Tor.