Actress Charlotte Hope failed her driving test three times, is hopelessly messy and claims she’s bad at almost everything. But one thing she admits she’s good at is acting. 

It’s taken her eight years, but the actress is proving that with her latest role as “The Spanish Princess,” premiering on Starz at 8 tonight.

Hope plays Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, in the miniseries. When Henry divorced her after 24 years of marriage, it caused a critical rupture with the Catholic Church and sent Catherine to live out her days alone and betrayed.

Hope, who says she grew up an incurable nerd, seems perfect for the part. “I lived in the middle of nowhere, the nearest town was 20 minutes away,” she says in her clipped British accent.

“And I’m basically allergic to the outside. I get terrible hay fever, am allergic to cats, allergic to horses. So I just read, basically. My parents said, ‘You’re in the middle of the countryside, you’re supposed to be outside making mud pies.’ And I’d just be inside reading. I had fat glasses. I was not an attractive child. There was nothing glamorous about it,” she smiles.

A graduate of Oxford, Hope was emboldened by her own determination. “I decided at 13 that I wanted to go to Oxford, and I just worked really hard,” she explains. “It just seemed like that was where I was supposed to be going. I loved French and Spanish and loved French and Spanish literature, and so I just did it,” she says.

“When I was like 3 or 4 my mum said I’d get into this reading competition with this girl in kindergarten where I’d come home and say, ‘I read four books tonight.’ And then I’d say, ‘I read five.’ And the teacher had to separate us … By about 8 or 9 I did all my friends’ homework. I thought, ‘I don’t need to just do my homework. I’ll do everyone’s homework.’”

While she was polishing off her friends’ homework, she was also taking a drama class in grade school.

“I remember being in drama class and just thinking it was the best thing in the world. But I figured everyone thought it was the best thing in the world. It was like cake! I came from a really small town, and it never occurred to me that I could do it as a job. No one around me became an actor,” she says.

“You just went to university and worked hard and got a proper job. It wasn’t until I was at university where suddenly I was, like, ‘Hey, I think I could make a living out of this.’ But I’ve been obsessed with it my whole life.”

That obsession stood her in good stead when she was washing dishes in the morning, waitressing most of the night, running out of money, and not landing any acting jobs.

“My friends who’d graduated from Oxford were getting jobs and I was scrambling for any commercial I could get.”

She still managed to study mime for a year in Paris and went to New York to try her luck there. All that was contrary to her nature, says Hope.

“I’m not a natural adventurer at all,” she shakes her head. “But I really love acting, if that’s the price. If I had my choice, I’d happily live at home, cook dinner in the evening. I’m a real home-bug and I love structure, but I love acting more. I’m not one of those people who says, ‘Oh, I’m just going to go wherever and do anything.’ I’m not a natural adventurer at all.”

But she’s overcoming her trepidations, she thinks. “In the beginning I used to be terrified. I’d have a weekend in New York and I didn’t know anyone, and that would really scare me. But now I’ve put roots down everywhere. It’s a small price. There are many worse things that people have to endure.”

Hope’s mother is retired and her father is a barrister. She recalls his sound advice when she made it into Oxford. “My dad said to me, ‘These moments of jubilation are really rare. Treasure them because they don’t happen very often.’ It made me really conscious of appreciating it when something good has happened. Just enjoy it.”