In a few short years Ed Westwick has established himself as one of the brightest young stars in Hollywood.

In the bitter sweet British romantic comedy Chalet Girl, Westwick stars alongside Brooke Shields, Bill Nighy and Tamsin Egerton, as Jonny Masden, a wealthy young man who’s world is turned upside down when he visits the ski slopes of Europe and falls in love with the feisty Kim (Felicity Jones).

Hi Ed! How are you?

I’m peachy, I’m fantastic actually, I’m in New York right now and everything is great out there, New York is New York... but looking very much forward to getting back to the UK.

Are you a good cook?

I’m pretty good. I did it in school and I kind of dilly dally a little bit, and kind of the gift and craft of New York City is there’s so many options out there in terms of restaurants all you need to do is walk out of the door and there are so many great restaurants. And I eat out a lot because of the convenience. But I’m looking forward to going home; it’s going to be great. My brother has a one-year-old baby who I haven’t seen for six months and I’m looking forward to seeing the little fella. It’s going to be great. 

Do you ski?

I do ski, I was fortunate enough that when I was in school, every year, my secondary school, they did skiing trips to Italy and Austria so every year from like 11 to 16, I went for a week and it was probably the most hilarious times of my teens to tell you the truth, because it was like, everybody bundled in the coach for a 26 hour drive, and it’s like you and like your best friend, and then you are all annoying, crazy 13, and 14 years olds and so we got in an spent a week together annoying teachers!

Do you snowboard as well? 

I don’t actually, that’s one thing I didn’t do. I actually had one lesson when we were doing the movie. But I’m more into the skiing – I just feel so free on the skis. And there’s so much room for improvement with the skiing thing, I’m not like X Games world champion or anything but I do love it. It’s something I can enjoy and improve on and I may well revisit the snowboarding at some point, but skiing is the main thing for me.

And did you get much skiing to do for the film? Or were they worried about accidents and insurance?

You know, that’s the thing, I think I ended up doing about two days worth of skiing and we were there for six weeks or so, partly because of insurance reasons and things like that but more so that because we were very busy making the film and then when you finish for the day you don’t really have the time to get on the slopes. And if you had a day off it wasn’t necessarily the thing that you wanted to do for some reason. But I have to say when I did actually get the chance to ski it was fantastic. And you know, we were in a great resort and it kind of reminded me of how much fun those European ski resorts can be. 

You said that you get a limited amount of time each year at the moment to make a film and it has to be special. What was it about Chalet Girl then that you liked?

Well I think it’s a return to sort of that English comedy kind of that I grew up with. It has elements of Richard Curtis and that classic English wit which is great. And I found the whole skiing element attractive and it’s not often that you find a film that is based around that kind of exciting sport and it’s something I grew up doing and I felt connected to it. But really, it’s the script – a really cracking script.

How did you first get into acting?

When I was very young, I went into different drama groups and stuff and one of the ones I went along to was called Top Hat Stage and Screen School. It was in Welwyn Garden City (in Hertfordshire, England) and I went along to that for a few years, and they were great over there, I was singing and I was acting, and I really enjoyed it.

Chalet Girl (12A) is available on DVD and Blu-ray from 3rd October 2011