They are the Borders brothers who are finding success on both stage and screen.

Jack and Calum Lowden, from Oxton, near Lauder, are both excelling at their creative careers, with Jack now one of the key characters in the BBC's latest lavish literary adaptation.

Jack, 25, an already established young actor, is currently starring in the BBC's six part drama War and Peace.

His younger brother Calum, 23, an ascending talent of ballet, is now a 1st soloist for Royal Swedish Ballet.

Jack Lowden is currently portraying Nikolai, the reckless eldest son of the Rostov family, who seeks adventure on the battlefield against the French.

Making War and Peace, he says, has been a "beast of a job".

He said: "I learnt loads of new skills, horse riding, walking with a sword dangling at your side trying to trip you up at any given moment, but mostly [learned about] the places we shot in, experiencing Russia and Lithuania with Russians and Lithuanians.

"And a lot of what I’ve watched so far I didn’t get to see - [as it is] being shot as you tend to just spend time with your 'family' and story line. "I’m just proud to be part of it."

He has already won awards for his work on stage, including his role in Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts for which he won an Olivier Award and the Ian Charleson Award for his performance as Oswald, as well as a major role in the National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch in 2010/11.

He has also appeared as Eric Liddell in a stage version of Chariots of Fire, and has appeared on TV in Wolf Hall, The Tunnel, and is to play Tony Benn in the forthcoming movie A United Kingdom.

Jack was enrolled by his parents, Gordon and Jacquie, in the Scottish Youth Theatre when he was 10 and he completed his training at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (then called the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama), in 2011.

Of his brother Calum, he said: "I’m in awe of my brother every time I watch him perform.

"He’s too good. We have absolutely no idea why we wanted to do what we do. We were just never told by the people around us that we couldn’t."

Calum, now based in Stockholm, said he may have been inspired to dance by seeing Michael Flatley, the Irish dancer, when he was five.

He added: "Straight away I wanted to do tap, which led in the ballet at the same school in Edinburgh.

"I've just finished my first main principal role as the Prince in the Nutcracker, and am now a 1st Soloist.

"It has been going well since joining the Royal Swedish ballet, I am quite hungry and eager to move up fast through the company and I feel Royal Swedish ballet is a great place to do this, they give opportunities to young dancers."

Calum trained at the English National Ballet School and the Royal Ballet School in London.

He says of he and his brother's careers: "We come from an area where we were lucky to have great teachers at primary school and high school that were as enthusiastic about performing as us."

The dancer landed his job in Sweden through auditions.

"You tend to audition as many places as you can as jobs are quite scarce especially full-time corps de ballet contracts," he said.

"But Sweden was one of the companies to offer me this and with a new director [Johannes Ohmen] joining with me it sounded quite exciting his vision."

For Jack, it was one modern classic, first performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2006, that inspired him to first pursue a career on the stage.

"Among many things, Black Watch [inspired me]", he said.

"We were taken to it by our English teacher at school [Earlston High School] and it was the first piece of theatre I’d seen where I wasn’t aware of it being a show, and they talked like humans, like people I knew, so I was instantly on board with the story. Perfect theatre."