Mia McKenna-Bruce has joined the cast of 'The Cry of the Guard'.

The 27-year-old actress - who won the BAFTA Rising Star Award last year - has replaced Riley Keough as one of the leads in the film from French director Claire Denis.

The story is set over one night near a vast construction site in Senegal, where a group of workers are confronted by a man whose brother was killed on the premises in a work-related incident.

Mia will appear alongside Matt Dillon and Isaach de Bankole in the movie - which is adapted from Bernard-Marie Koltes' play 'Black Battles With Dogs' and has been written by Denis, Suzanne Lindon and Andrew Litvack.

The star earned the BAFTA award for her performance in Molly Manning Walker's coming-of-age drama 'How to Have Sex' but she revealed that she was close to giving up on acting before landing the part.

She told The London Standard newspaper: "I've had many a moment where I've gone, 'I don't know if I can do this.'

"And even the year that we shot 'How to Have Sex', I was like, 'I'm gonna give it this year. And then, if not, I think I need to do something else.'

"Because you feel like you're giving the best of your ability time and time again and it feels like someone's telling you that's not good enough, and that's not the case."

Mia was cast in 'How to Have Sex' long before production began and said it was a professional turning point as it enabled her to take part in chemistry reads for the first time and gave her precious insight into the casting process.

She explained: "I got to read with loads of other actors, and I was reading with such amazing actors and stuff.

"You could just see that that part just wasn't quite right for them. And then I was like, 'Oh, they don't lie when they say that's actually a thing.' Like, it's just not your right part. So, perseverance is key."

Mia features alongside Helena Bonham Carter and Martin Freeman in Netflix's upcoming Agatha Christie adaptation 'The Seven Dials Mystery' but revealed how she broke her foot in the middle of a scene.

She recalled: "Literally in a scene, the tiniest trip over a carpet. All I had to was walk out the room - stood up, walked out, tripped over a carpet, landed on my metatarsal, broken. But, you know, acting, I tried to pretend it didn't happen."

The actress had the added pressure of trying to do a scene opposite Helena whilst in agonising pain.

She said: "The scene that I had to do that day was with lovely Miss Helena Bonham Carter. I was doing the scene with her, and I was on a lot of painkillers, and I was just like, so many lines to remember, my foot feels like it's going to fall off."