Pettyfer's chance meeting with fry led to stardom

Alex Pettyfer stumbled upon stardom on a school trip, when he accidentally walked into a room where Stephen Fry was auditioning young hopefuls for a TV movie.

The Stormbreaker actor, who stars in highly-anticipated new sci-fi film I Am Number Four, admits his whole career started when he fell in love with a girl at his school, and took up media classes in a bid to catch her eye.

It was on a class field trip for his new subject which led him to a bizarre meeting with funnyman Fry, who was casting for his schoolboy TV film Tom Brown’s Schooldays - and snapped up a young Pettyfer for the lead role.

Pettyfer says, "I was at school. I had a big crush on a girl and I joined the media class because she was in it. I realised that I was two years younger than her and I wasn’t in the same class as her, and I was stuck with it. I went on this school trip, and I didn’t really care about acting or about media. I wanted to be a racing driver.

"I went to go to the toilet and walked into this auditioning room where Stephen Fry was, and he must have taken a fancy. Him and the producer stuck me in this small TV movie, called Tom Brown’s Schooldays, which was a great experience. I loved every second and realised that, as long as this journey was going to go forward, I was going to go with it because who doesn’t like playing dress up?"