I recently went to a screening of the latest Disney film, ‘The Finest Hours’ which chronicles the true story of the most courageous small boat rescue in Coast Guard history. In February of 1952, one of the worst storms to ever hit the East Coast struck New England, damaging an oil tanker off the coast of Cape Cod and literally ripping it in half. On a small lifeboat faced with frigid temperatures and 70-foot high waves, four members of the Coast Guard set out to rescue the more than 30 stranded sailors trapped aboard the rapidly sinking vessel.

Happily, I also got to interview the four principals in the cast, Casey Affleck, Chris Pine, Ben Foster, and Holliday Grainger, as well as director Craig Gillespie.

First of all, let me tell you about Holliday Grainger, who plays Miriam in the film. She is an absolute wonder. Although she is from Manchester, England, she rocks a Boston accent like no other. Here’s what she had to say about being the central female character in what is very much a man’s world:

HOLLIDAY GRAINGER:  “It was slightly intimidating the first day only because I had literally flown overnight from a job in Wales actually that I was shooting.  So I had arrived on set quite jet lagged, slightly terrified about the accent and everyone had been working with the guys for like two months and so as soon as I walked on site I did feel like I was like a museum piece. Everyone was all eyes on me.  Like here’s a woman, there’s a girl, she’s got lipstick.  She’s like – she’s in heels and a dress, what is this? *laughs* 

So that was slightly scary. But Craig was just so lovely and really, I mean immediately it was just we can try it in lots of different ways, you know, so that kind of took away any kind of intimidation.”

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HOLLYWOOD—Holliday Grainger was destined for a career in show business. Her parents named her after legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday, adding an extra “l” for flourish.

“My parents were on the way to the registry office, and realized they had to come up with a name,” the British born actress recounts. “It was going to be Billie or Mollie. They were like, ‘Mollie sounds like Holliday, so let’s go with Holliday.’”

Grainger got her start early, but it was in acting, rather than singing, that she has made her mark. At age six, she was cast in a BBC comedy drama “All Quiet on the Preston Front.” Other roles followed, but she didn’t get an agent until she was 12. The hazel-eyed beauty has a classic beauty, reminiscent of legendary Hollywood actress Gene Tierney. Her classic look and remarkable acting skills have landed her roles in several notable productions, most notably Lucrezia Borgia in the acclaimed Showtime series “The Borgias.” She also appeared in Mike Newell’s adaptation of “Great Expectations.” More recently, she played one of the vain stepsisters in Kenneth Branagh’s “Cinderella.”
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The “Borgias” and “Bonnie and Clyde” actress heads to the past again, this time in 1950s Massachusetts with “The Finest Hours.”

“The Finest Hours” concerns the spectacle of two oil tankers being pummeled by one serious nor’easter. Actor Holliday Grainger wasn’t part of that. She plays Miriam, the fiancee of Chris Pine’s Bernard, who drives the rescue lifeboat into hundred foot waves to save the crews. She didn’t arrive till the end of production.

“My first day they’d been shooting with the guys for months,” Grainger tells us. “When I arrived everyone was staring at me — like, ‘Oh my god, it’s a girl!’ There was this totally different creature in their midst.”

Nevertheless, the 27-year-old English actress — best known for the Showtime drama “The Borgias,” the TV miniseries “Bonnie and Clyde” (as the former) and last year’s “Cinderella,” in which she played one of the wicked stepsisters —  wasn’t simply The Girl. Based on a real event that happened off of Cape Cod in 1952, the film posits Miriam as headstrong. She’s the one who proposes to Bernard, not the other way around, which even today is often seen as a no-no.
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Cinderella star Holliday Grainger is stunned that someone pretended to be her online.

Cinderella star Holliday Grainger was spooked after someone pretended to be her on Twitter – and was so convincing movie bosses fell for the hoax.

The 27-year-old actress starred as Ugly Sister Anastasia in the movie earlier this year (15), a role which has helped catapult her into the limelight. Her increased profile means she’s won hordes of new fans, although that hasn’t been an entirely positive experience for the star as one them attempted to assume her identity online.

“Someone set up a Twitter account pretending to be me,” she told Britain’s The Daily Mail’s Sebastian Shakespeare. “It was really terrifying. All my fans and people I worked with started following her and interacting with her. It really freaked me out.”

The unknown person seemingly had Holliday’s personality down pat, as even some people who are very close to her fell for the rouse. While the star doesn’t see that as a huge deal, she became more upset when the fake account threatened her working life.

“My friends were tweeting her thinking it was me, and even companies like Disney were tweeting her,” she explained. “She’d also posted loads of my personal pictures that she’d stolen. It was really upsetting.”

Eventually bosses at the social networking website realized what was happening and the account was shut down.

Holliday has got over the shock now and she’s even able to joke a little about the harrowing time, revealing that the guy she was dating when it happened was in no doubt the user was an imposter because they couldn’t spell legendary author Jane Austen’s name – something the actress would never get wrong.

This isn’t the only difficult fan encounter the star has had. She’s previously admitting struggling when she’s recognized on the street, especially as some guys can be aggressive when they approach her.

“My mate and I were walking down the street and some guy followed us on a bike, being quite weirdly sexually threatening,” she recalled to Metro newspaper in 2014. “Then some guy shouted at us out of a van, then another one shouted at us down the road and what did we get called? A sl*t, or a b***h, for not turning round. You forget that exists, that something like that happens and you think, ‘How is that possible? Are you not embarrassed with yourself for doing that?'”

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