Her matrilineal great-grandmother was a German-Jewish concert violinist. Arterton attended Gravesend Grammar School for Girls in Kent (now Mayfield Grammar School) and made her amateur stage debut in a production of Alan Ayckbourn's "The Boy Who Fell into a Book". Her performance won her the best actress prize in a competition at a local festival. At age 16, Arterton left Gravesend Grammar School to attend acting college at the Miskin Theatre at North West Kent College in Dartford. She later received a full government grant to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), from which she graduated in 2008. Arterton won her first professional role in Stephen Poliakoff's "Capturing Mary" while she was still at drama school. She made her stage debut as Rosaline in Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost" at the Globe Theatre in London in July 2007 before graduating later that year. She made her film debut in "St Trinian's" (2007) as Head Girl Kelly. In 2008, she appeared in the James Bond film "Quantum of Solace". Chosen from around fifteen hundred candidates, Arterton plays Bond Girl Strawberry Fields, in what is described as a "nice-sized role". Arterton describes her character as "the thinking man's crumpet". In the same year, she played the eponymous protagonist in the BBC adaptation of Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the d'Urbervilles". Also in 2008, she played Elizabeth Bennet in the ITV serial, "Lost in Austen". Her most controversial role to date was in the 2009 film "The Disappearance of Alice Creed", in which her character is kidnapped and abused in several graphic nude scenes. The role required her to be handcuffed to a bed and wear a ball gag in her mouth throughout. She requested that she be left tied to the bed even when the camera was not on her to help her performance. She joked that the crew would put the ball gag back in if she was chatting too much. The film was well received, with Frank Scheck for "The Hollywood Reporter" noting, “Arterton… handles the rigorous physical and emotional demands of her role with great skill.” Arterton was the face of Avon's Bond Girl 007 fragrance, when it launched in October 2008. In 2010, Arterton made her West End debut in the UK premiere of "The Little Dog Laughed".