When your father is James Bond and your mother and stepmother are both actresses, pursuing a thespian career can be a tad daunting.

"There's sort of that thing where I wish I was really good at science, but I was bloody awful," Ella Loudon said on a recent Friday morning.

The 25-year-old daughter of Daniel Craig and Fiona Loudon, and stepdaughter of Rachel Weisz, was lounging in one of the seats at Shakespeare & Company's Roman Garden Theatre, the outdoor venue where "As You Like It" is currently being staged through Sept. 2. At the time, Loudon was preparing for her role as Phoebe while wrapping up her run as Banquo in the Lenox troupe's latest production of "Macbeth." She had started learning her lines for "As You Like It" shortly after the opening of "Macbeth."

"It's amazing how the brain can naturally compartmentalize, but you're also talking to someone who really struggles with learning lines," said Loudon, who is dyslexic. "There are some people who can just get it. It's not an excuse, but it's something I struggle with."

She tries to compensate for this shortcoming by thoroughly researching her characters' emotional and physical states before rehearsals begin. In Melia Bensussen's instrospective version of "Macbeth," Loudon examined Banquo's spirituality.

"I wanted to see what his religion was, what his belief system was, because he experiences the spirits, too," Loudon said.

For "As You Like It," Loudon focused on this Allyn Burrows-directed production's 1920s setting.

"Women didn't cross their legs. They always sat to the side, but it was still legs closed," Loudon said, posing. She also said that women often leaned their shoulders forward.

"Thinking like that, that's going to help me get into character," she said.

In the play, Phoebe resists love at points.

"How can I still bring the strength of a woman during a time [when] women were seen and not heard still?" Loudon said of her challenge.

She wasn't planning to be docile.

"My Phoebe has a voice, and she's going to be bloody heard," she said.

That has often been Loudon's approach to roles since her earliest days onstage. Though she was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Loudon was largely raised in London. At 11, she starred in a school production of the gangster comedy "Bugsy Malone," a musical which, she said, "really no Americans know! [It] really drives me insane because I think it's amazing. And, ironically, it's set in the '20s like 'As You Like It.' It should be seen. I think everyone should watch it.