If you’ve seen the brilliant psychological horror flick 28 Days Later, chances are your perceptions of actress Naomie Harris are completely misconstrued. As the fearless post-apocalyptic survivor Selena, Harris valiantly takes an aggressive approach to hunting the "infected" that roam London, slaying one bloodthirsty hyper-zombie after another.

But one disclosure, in particular, from the 26-year-old actress should serve as an accurate distinction between Selena and Naomie. "It’s not my typical kind of movie that I would normally like," Harris says of the initial prospect of filming 28 Days Later during a recent interview, before dropping the real shocker. "Because I’ve never seen a horror movie. The scariest thing I’ve seen is Jaws. But when I saw it, I just loved it."

In fact, Harris says she bares almost no similarities to the character that’s made her a player in the acting business since the international success of Danny Boyle’s so-called reinvention of the zombie movie. "I think I’m very far from her," she explains in mildly thick English accent. "I found it quite difficult to get Selena."

Ain’t that the beauty of discovering such a fresh talent.

Who would’ve thought that the woman behind such a powerful force on film – a female lead reminiscent of Alien’s Ripley in all her glory – is more on the benign side, a British Cambridge grad who aspires to star in a Jane Austen adaptation ("I’d love to do a period drama… and wear a corset and dress," she says)? But that goes to show just how forceful and convincing Harris’s first major role is conveyed, and luckily for her (as well as us), it’s in a film that’s buzz-worthiness is sure to guarantee it staying power and wide exposure.

After graduating from Cambridge with a degree in social and political sciences, Harris was nine months out of post-grad acting school (where the former child actor was "retrained") when she auditioned for the role of Selena. Like most young actors, Harris knew her success was dependent upon one break: "It’s about people willing to take a risk on a newcomer," she explains. "And nobody really wants to do that because everybody’s job is on the line."

Danny Boyle, however, is known for taking risks. While some of the Trainspotting director’s risks haven’t panned out so well (critics and fans alike generally despised his follow-ups A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach), his confidence in Harris was evident from the onset. The filmmaker coached her through her final audition and advised her on exactly what she needed to do to win the part.

But getting the role would turn out to be the easy part, as Boyle put his cast (of mostly relatively unknowns, especially Stateside) through a grueling shoot that required a month of night shoots "in November at night with rain machines and rats and covered in blood," Harris explains.

Starring alongside Irish actor Cillian Murphy, the two play a couple of the small band of human survivors that have avoided the virus caused by freed lab monkeys infected with a deathly amount of rage. Soon, London’s population begins wiping itself out as the those infected turn into monstrous zombies with an immeasurable amount of rage and insatiable taste for blood.

When Murphy’s character Jim wakes out of a coma 28 days after the start of infection, he roams around an eerily deserted London before he’s first attacked by these infected "zombies" and saved by Selena and a mate. Jim and Selena eventually join forces with a middle-aged father figure (Brendan Gleeson) and his young daughter, and the foursome flee to the countryside where they believe there might be a military presence and safe haven from the infected.

"Danny talks a lot about it being a reflection of a sort of social rage," Harris says. "The rage that we’re all experiencing – air rage and supermarket rage and all that. I lookat it as an exploration of what happens when you remove the social structures on man as an individual and what’s left after that. And I think you’re left with a quite base individual who’s quite lost and very destructive."

To prepare his cast for action, Boyle held what he’d call "zombie workshops" in which he would stand in a middle of the room and invite the actors to attack him – or vice versa. "We all had to be zombies," Harris explains. "Which was really fun, actually, and really liberating, especially for my character because she’s such a long way from who I am. She’s such a strong character, and to find that strength is a physical thing, really, and a lot of what it entails to be zombie is that kind of physical liberation and physical strength and aggression."

With the resounding success of 28 Days Later in the UK (at least, publicly… the critics didn’t back it as much) and in the States, Harris is catching windfall of attention. She’s recently wrapped two films, Thunderbirds (which is slated for a Fall, 2004 release) and Trauma (with Mena Suvari), and was on en route after this interview to L.A. where she’ll live for a month while she deals with a new American-based agent.

Harris is proof that one role really can break a career – but of course few performances are as gripping as hers in 28 Days Later. Fame is now inevitable. But don’t tell her that.

"It’d be really nice to keep some of my anonymity," she says. "I think it’s important that you maintain that touch with what’s going on at ground level, and what’s happening in every day life. If you start traveling around in limos the whole time then I think that doesn’t feed you somehow. You get divorced from what is true life and that’s not healthy."

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