The corset wars

Three years ago they were both anonymous London schoolgirls, worrying about their coursework and dreaming of stardom. This weekend, Romola Garai and Keira Knightley will find themselves catapulted into the spotlight in the battle of the costume dramas. Garai is starring in Daniel Deronda on the BBC and Knightley in Dr Zhivago on ITV1.

Expectations are high since both have been adapted by Andrew Davies, whose landmark Pride and Prejudice made Jennifer Ehle an award-winning star and led to appearances on Broadway.

Now Davies, who once said he "would hesitate to take on a big serial without a strong woman" for female viewers to identify with, is expected to do the same for Garai and Knightley. Of the two, Garai is the elder at 20. Starring alongside Edward Fox and Greta Scacchi, Garai plays selfish middle-class temptress Gwendolen Harleth who makes a disastrous marriage in the idealistic Deronda.

She loved the part: "It was fantastic fun to put on those dresses and become this fearless, beautiful woman." The daughter of a retired bank manager and journalist turned carer, Garai spent her first eight years following her father's job around Asia before settling with her family in Wiltshire.

She remembers her first school, Stonar, as a "happy, jolly-hockeysticks place where I spent my time skiving and making daisy chains on the lawn". She moved to the City of London School for Girls where her drama teacher encouraged her to audition for the Bafta-winning Last Of The Blonde Bombshells. Garai lives by herself in West Kensington ("I love it!") but has a new boyfriend, 26-year-old barrister Ben Hooper, whom she has been dating for two months.

"It's so nice that he's not in the business," she says. "He is very bright and sees the frivolity of the whole thing with an arched eyebrow."

Garai is wary of the stardom her leading role could bring. "It can all go wrong, no matter how much you plan, so I just want to be respected for what I do," she says.

Knightley, 17, plays Lara in Dr Zhivago, which Davies has spiced up considerably compared to the movie classic starring Julie Christie and Omar Sharif. In one scene, she and co-star Hans Matheson, who plays Zhivago, are shown in an erotic clinch in a bath. The version by Davies, who was also responsible for Tipping the Velvet, also has a new ending, which has upset traditionalists.

But Knightley, who was too selfconscious to see any footage of herself while filming, says she "adored" playing Lara. "It's an amazing story. I think everybody can learn from it and I think it's important to film it again." She added: "It's a little bit scary to take on the part of an icon, particularly when my dad fancied Julie Christie."

The daughter of playwright Sharman Macdonald and actor Will Knightley, she first asked for an agent at the age of three. Parts in plays at Teddington School and Heatham House, her local youth club, followed, and she has already appeared in Bend It Like Beckham, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and A Village Affair. But this role is expected to catapult her to fame.