Did the 20th century produce any richer female character than Scarlett O'Hara, the determined, ruthless heroine of Gone With the Wind?

Immortalised by Vivien Leigh in the 1939 film of Margaret Mitchell's mammoth novel, Scarlett exerted such a pull that Leigh had to fight her way past Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard and Kath-arine Hepburn to get the role.

Leigh's Oscar-winning turn must cast a long shadow over any actress who wants to take on the part. Surely, anyone considering playing Scarlett on stage must be terrified?

“Absolutely,” says Jill Paice with a smile. “It is completely intimidating. But also thrilling.”

Paice, 28, is the unknown Ohio actress picked by the director Trevor Nunn to step into Scarlett's shiny shoes in a new musical adaptation for the London stage. She does not conform to the popular image of Scarlett. Slim, with delicate, cat-like features and a cute, tufty haircut, she is calm, focused and flawlessly polite.

“I'm not like Scarlett,” she admits. “She has incredible strength, how she gets herself and her family through the civil war. I have always admired her, and I have always tried to use something from the film in every show I've ever done, a reaction, or a flick of the eye, or just the way she holds herself - because I love Vivien Leigh and I think there's nothing wrong with learning and borrowing from fellow actors.”

Still, the question remains, how did she get the job? Was there some Scarlett-like wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes? Disappointingly, it appears not.

“I've been unnaturally obsessed with Gone With the Wind since I first saw the film as a child,” Paice explains. “I would save my allowance to buy a vintage copy of the book or a Scarlett doll, and I would dress up every Hallowe'en as her. My room was decorated with Gone With the Wind. I was just in love - with the story, with the time period ...”

She brought her obsession to London, and when appearing in Nunn's production of The Woman in White in 2004, she found herself making dinnertable smalltalk with the director. When she asked what he was working on and he replied that he was starting a workshop for the Gone With the Wind musical, she says that she fell out of her chair. Two weeks later, Nunn phoned to ask her to play Scarlett in his workshop.

For the next few years, Paice would call Nunn to see if the musical had finally got off the ground. “I just kept waiting, expecting to be dropped from the production. I figured they would need - would want - to bring in a movie star, which I would have completely understood. It's a business.”

A business with unfortunate timing: when the part was offered to her, she had to be released from a Broadway contract for the musical Curtains on Broadway, to fly to London for February rehearsals.

With opening night moving ever closer, the cast are rehearsing six days a week. John Napier's set will transform the New London Theatre into 1860s Atlanta with walkways for the actors around the circle, exits through the stalls and scenery stretching right around the audience. Margaret Martin has written the book, lyrics and the music, which Paice says combine gospel, folk and Irish melodies for a home-spun, down-South feel. “There are some great numbers. Although Scarlett actually ends up doing a lot more talking.”

Darius Danesh (of Pop Idol fame) is Scarlett's turbulent love interest Rhett Butler. Paice's opinion of her co-star is the expected one. “Darius is lovely!” she grins. “I didn't know anything about him, or where he came from and I still don't; I just know him as this guy who is very tall, and he turned up to rehearsal and is genuine and so enthusiastic and so humble. We've been able to talk and discover the relationship between Rhett and Scarlett.”

At present, the stage affair is the only one in Paice's life, and the one subject around which she becomes flustered. “It's difficult - I always say I have a love affair with my career. If you're dating someone in Wall Street they're working ten to six and you have to work at night, so when do you see each other? It's easier to date theatre people because they understand. I do hope to get married and have kids eventually,” she says, anxiously ruffling her hair. “Who knows, maybe I'll meet some fabulous young man here!”

Being away from her New York home has never been much of a hardship for Paice. Community theatre was a way for her to meet people when her parents finally settled in Ohio, after spending time in Crete, mainland Greece and Dakota where Paice, “an air force brat”, was born. “I always think my childhood trained me for being an actor because you have to be willing to put everything down and move if you want to keep working.”

But Paice's parents weren't thrilled about her career choice. “My mom wanted me to be a pharmacist, but it was very clear to me from a young age that I wanted to be in theatre, and I was going to be OK.”

She was right. She attended Baldwin Wallace College in Ohio - “a wonderful, safe place to learn, we were never encouraged to lose weight or colour our hair” - and found an agent through a showcase in her final year. She moved to New York three days after graduation, and within two months was booked in the ensemble for the US tour of Les Misérables. She's been intermittently on Broadway and the West End ever since.

“I've been lucky that I could slot right into this world. But up until now, I've been an ingénue, who just gets a little kiss right at the end,” she laughs. “But, as Trevor [Nunn] said to me the other day, ‘Scarlett O'Hara is kissed within an inch of her life in the first act!'”

So now that she has the chance, will audiences give a damn for Jill Paice's Scarlett? “Who knows?” she shrugs. “I might fail dismally. But I have loved Vivien Leigh for so many years that I really hope to sort of channel her, and bring her to the stage with me. I think you do end up loving Scarlett.” We'll just have to see

Gone with the Wind, New London Theatre, Drury Lane, London WC2 (www.gwtwthemusical.com 0870 8900141), from Sat

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