Dance has such an intensity to it. You become, in a way, an intense person.
Ballet has really helped me in every acting role. You have to be very disciplined, you have to be able to control your nerves and perform under pressure, and all those things you have to use in acting when you're on film or going for an audition.
I want to just do my job and do it well.
I always collect a bunch of images for every film that I do, that reminds me of an essence of the character, or the time that they live in, or what they're experiencing.
I was a bit of a loner as a teenager. I never went to a single social event, because they terrified me.
You are relying on a waiting on other people in acting and films, so to be able to have something that I have full creative control over is really very therapeutic.
He [directo Park] gave me a sculpture, a jaguar. It is the animal, obviously, and it is in my bedroom at my parents' place at the moment. But I am just about to move into my own place and I shall put it somewhere there. I shall make sure it has good lighting. This will be my first place of my own and I am so excited.
Any time you get a role that's a young person, that resembles what it's like to be a teenager, I always kind of jump at it.
When I got onto set with him we were given a folder of storyboards. I thought that was pretty incredible because I hadn't worked with anybody who used storyboards before so he obviously had a very precise way as to how he visualized the film from the very beginning. It was every scene, but to his credit he was incredibly collaborative and gave us many opportunities to have our own input and to change things with him, so it was a really great way of working.
It's really rare to get a teenage role that resembles something of what it's like to be a young person, that isn't a cliché or a stereotype.
Yes, a lot of European cinema and a lot of independent films and art-house stuff. She is a photographer. She is a visual artist and photographer and my dad is, too. My mum, I must credit for showing me good films. With my career, my parents were great and though they were a little wary, maybe, of the acting ambitions they have always been supportive.
Director Park asking that if there was a pocket on one side of the piece of clothing then there should be a pocket on the other side. They were a little uncomfortable to wear, yes, because there were a lot of tight, high-waisted things so it was great at the end of the day to slip into some pajamas!
I think dancing is contributed hugely to how I am as an actor, just a level of comfort in my body and in movement. Things can become strangely physically technical when you're acting, and often something that just feels so unnatural is actually what you need to do in a certain scene.
I used to love ballet and I did it really, really intensely. But it came so much about achieving physical perfection, which when I was 14 was a big deal.
One of the producers, Wonjo, was an amazing interpreter. I don't think we really knew how it was going to work at the beginning. Yet it was something that a couple of days into it seemed so seamless and it wasn't something that we noticed or thought about. A couple of times I cornered him and forced him to speak English but we didn't speak much English at all. That said, I don't think anything was ever lost in translation. It was all very easy.
I come from a background of independent films.
The independent films are really where I kind of come from and where I feel comfortable. It's never been about the blockbusters and making a huge tonne of money. It's always been about wanting to do projects about the things that I think are important to be out there.
I really like trying to find the roles that are actually really meaningful to me.
There's a bunch of directors that I really admire, and Australian ones as well. It would be nice to do a film at home.
We have so many American and English films in Australia that we hear those accents often, so they're not too hard to pick up, but it's always a challenge.
I love doing accents because it takes you one step away from yourself and allows you to embody someone else's character.
Everybody is completely different. I think there is no formula for filmmaking. Everybody finds their own way of doing things.
I always thought the piano scene was kind of unique to shoot because we were actually able to film with the playback of the actual song. And that was quite amazing because it almost made it easier - music is usually something that is added after filming has finished so to be able to shoot a scene with music was really wonderful.
I didn't shoot any guns then or when we did the scene with Uncle Charlie [Matthew Goode] and Evie [Nicole Kidman] in the hall. I sort of pressed the button but there were no blanks or anything in there because I think it was always going to cut.
I wanted to be a dancer from when I was about nine or something like that and started ballet. I used to really like it and got into it and did it full time for a couple of years. I did a lot of ballet but I traded that in for acting when I was about 15.
