The Mini revolution

Since sashaying on to the small screen, Mavor's public profile has rocketed. Aside from Skins, in which she resumes her relationship with a slutty mum played in a wonderful piece of casting against type by Clare Grogan, Mavor has become something of a Scots style icon. Not only did she become the face of Pringle Scotland for the company's spring and summer 2011 campaign, Mavor was bestowed with the Fashion Icon of the Year Award at the 2011 Scottish Fashion Awards.

"Oh, god, that was very weird!" she says. "Supposedly I'm Scotland's fashion icon, which is very amusing. Modelling's never something I really considered. I mean, I'm sitting here now eating this massive bowl of spaghetti and a bar of chocolate, so I'm not that body-conscious at all."

If Skins marked the start of Mavor's transformation from the giggly and understandably excited schoolgirl she was when she appeared on these pages a year ago, then the mature and ever so slightly louche-sounding young lady taking a lunch-break on holiday in Paris following the filming of the Skins finale suggests the metamorphosis to becoming a grown-up is complete.

"It kind of felt like putting on an old jumper," Mavor says of reviving Mini. "You could go back and improve your game. It felt very different going back. Last year everything was new, but this time it was more about learning your craft and how to manipulate your emotions and relive things. I was still finishing off my last year of school when the series went out, so it was very weird going in the day after Skins had been on and seeing how people reacted, but I was very pleasantly surprised. I'd always been interested in acting, which everybody knew about, so it didn't change things that much. I've still got the same best friends and everything. Last year as well, I had all these extremely hysterical moments onscreen, where you're forced to down bottles of vodka – as you do. But this year if anything, the new series is a lot darker. It's edgier, and a lot more full-on."

Two episodes into the new series of Skins, and, after a fast-moving opener that found Mini and the gang causing mayhem on holiday in Morocco, Mavor's words are ringing true. This may be even more the case when the two episodes that focus on Mini are aired. Both of these were penned by first-time writer, Jess Brittain.

If the name sounds familiar to Skins aficionados, it should, as Brittain is the 23-year-old sister of Jamie Brittain, who co-created Skins with the pair's father, Loanhead-born Bryan Elsley.

"I don't think it was an accident," says Brittain of her tenure on Skins. "Mini's always been written by young women previously, and I put myself up for it, and was lucky to be accepted. But Mini's changed a lot this series, and she's been put through a lot of things."

Brittain was 17 when Skins began, the same age as Mavor was when she was cast.

"I was the same age group they were depicting," Brittain recalls, "so my dad and my brother would get me and a few of my mates in for research, telling stories."

Brittain originally wanted to write fiction, and already has one Skins novel under her belt. Although she's under no illusions about how her family connections have helped her budding career, she had to submit ideas and scripts with all the other fledgling writers on the programme.

She admits: "It was always going to be a little bit weird having your dad as your boss and going to meetings with him, but it's all been quite an intense few weeks while we've been filming."

While Elsley cut his teeth writing and directing for major Scottish theatre companies throughout the 1980s, Mavor comes from a theatrical dynasty that dates back to her great-grand-father, Osborne Henry Mavor, aka playwright James Bridie, who also founded the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. The combination of the Elsley/Brittains and the Mavors, then, suggests a kind of youth theatre workshop on the telly that covers all strands of the process. "Dad's always been very clear about the collective process on Skins," Brittain points out. "None of us knew how to write when we came in, and we all just played things by instinct."

With Brittain already in talks for future script-writing jobs, Mavor, too, has moved on. Having finished filming Skins a matter of weeks ago, only now is she getting to grips with how her future might pan out.

Each generation of Skins has produced a breakout star, with Dev Patel who played Anwar in the first two series starring in Danny Boyle's multi-award-winning Slumdog Millionaire after Boyle's daughter pointed him towards Skins. Kaya Scodelario – Effie in series three and four – has just played Cathy in Andrea Arnold's big-screen take on Wuthering Heights.

Mavor is full of praise for Scodelario, and would love to see herself cast in such high-profile roles. But "at the moment I really want to improve my languages and learn Spanish," she admits. "I've only just started having meetings and going to auditions, and I don't know how any of that's going to pan out yet, but I have to stay realistic about things.

"I realise how lucky I was getting Skins, but I know acting's not the most secure job in the world, so I've got to try and balance any acting jobs I get with other things."

"I think it's hard when you've got so many things you want to do," she says, wonderfully losing her cool a little. "I completely want to act, but I'm still thinking of going to university, so maybe I'll concentrate on a degree. But I really want to get some interesting kinds of acting jobs. I'm involved with the National Youth Theatre, and that's great for meeting people, and I'm really interested in collaborations, so maybe I'll set up my own stuff."

Now we're about to see the last of Mini McGuinness, and perhaps Skins too for the foreseeable future, how is Mavor coping with not having to be nasty to everyone she meets?

"It's really strange," she says. "The character I've been playing is entirely fictional, but she's based on so many things. So coming to terms with never playing Mini again or having her lifestyle, it's quite a wrench. I never wear heels any more, for one thing. I mean, I never wear heels full-stop, but I always did as Mini, and now it's over, I really miss the pains in my feet. But not much."

Skins airs on E4, Mondays at 10pm.