A 29-year-old actress and mother from Kent is making a name for herself - on both stage and screen.

Louise Green, who has already appeared in Ricky Gervais’s latest TV comedy Extras, is in the new Basic Instinct film and she is to appear in a period drama alongside Bob Hoskins and Dame Judi Dench.

She now has her sights firmly set on a part in the new Harry Potter film which is due to start production in January.

The brunette from Bekesbourne, near Canterbury, joins the growing talent pool the city is producing, which includes film star Orlando Bloom and ex-Chaucer schoolboy Matt Holness who wrote and starred in the comedy Dark Place.

Remarkably Louise has juggled her burgeoning acting career with bringing up her children, George, six, and Lucy, three, and working part-time at Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

Louise, who has lived in east Kent for six years, said: "Acting was something I’ve always loved, but it was hard when I had two children quite early in life. But when my daughter reached the age of one, I decided to get back into it."

She started working with Kevin Wood, who produces pantomimes at the Marlowe Theatre, which led to roles in Snow White and Oliver!

Lately, she has had more work on screen. Louise plays a nightclub dancer in the forthcoming Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction which is set in London and features David Morrisey as a besotted shrink pursuing Sharon Stone.

In Extras, written by Gervais and The Office co-creator Stephen Merchant, Louise appeared in the episode starring Ben Stiller.

She said: "Extras was totally different from Basic Instinct because Morrisey was very serious about the work while Ricky and Stephen were just messing about all the time.

"It was brilliant doing Extras and Ben Stiller was great fun."

Louise has also worked with Bob Hoskins and Dame Judi Dench, whom she calls her idol, on a film called Mrs Henderson Presents, about the first nude review to open in Soho, which is due to be released this autumn.

She has even encouraged her son George to follow her footsteps into acting – at the tender age of four he appeared as the young Jesus alongside Edward Woodward and Daniel MacPherson in the Mystery Plays at Canterbury Cathedral last summer.

Meanwhile, Louise appears in a car chase in a forthcoming film called Stormbreaker, starring Stephen Fry and is also taking the part of a jackpot winner in a TV advert for Gala Bingo.