Cara Delevingne battled to silence acting doubters

Cara Delevingne had to battle to convince her co-stars she was more than a model when she began filming her TV debut.

The British stunner turns her hand to television acting for the first time in Sky Arts show Timeless, in which she stars alongside veteran English actress Sylvia Syms as a young woman married to a soldier.

However, Syms was ready to dismiss Delevingne as nothing more than a catwalk beauty before they met, and apparently made her views quickly known when they first spoke.

Delevingne says, "The first thing Sylvia said to me was, 'I hear you're some model tart'. It was the best moment ever, it was brilliant... As soon as we met she started putting me through my paces... She was testing me - I get that. I see people when I do things like this (thinking), 'You're just a model'. I'm fine with it, because I am ready to prove I'm more than that."

Syms' doubts were quickly dispelled, and the acting icon has even gone as far as to compare the model to Audrey Hepburn, saying, "Frankly, when I knew I was going to work with some... model I thought, 'Just a minute I spent 15 years on the board of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art'. (But) I literally fell in love with her the first day. The other girl I loved very much - she never got a decent break in England - her name was Audrey Hepburn."

Timeless is due to air in the U.K. on 19 June (14).