Step into the real Gilded Age on a glamorous escape from New York City
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Perth Now
01-08-2025
- Perth Now
Isla Fisher ready for next chapter after ‘tough' few years
Following her divorce from Sacha Baron Cohen, Perth-raised Isla Fisher is embracing her next move in a career that's seen her tackle countless genres and multiple continents. The 49-year-old was born in Oman to Scottish parents, then spent her early life in Cambridge in the UK, before her family emigrated to Perth when she was six. In a recent interview with Harpers Bazar, Fisher elaborates on her childhood in Perth and how she considers herself Australian at heart. 'I definitely have a complicated cultural identity because I ended up becoming friends with everyone from all these different backgrounds,' she told Harpers Bazar. 'I feel like a citizen of the world, but Australia is ultimately where I'm the happiest, because my most influential years were spent in Perth.' Fisher attended Perth's Methodist Ladies' College and discovered her passion for acting as a teen; she featured in local TV ads and children's series Bay City and Clowning Around before securing her first major role as Shannon Reed on Home and Away in 1994. Fisher recently elaborated on her Perth upbringing in a recent interview with Harper's Bazaar. Credit: James Anastasi for Harper's Bazaar / Supplied After stepping away from TV and pursuing further training at l'École Internationale de Théâtre in Paris, she dabbled in theatre and the 'horrible' audition circuit before she made her Hollywood debut as Shaggy's love interest in Scooby Doo . Once established in Hollywood, Fisher built a diverse career, earning acclaim in comedies like Confessions of a Shopaholic , thrillers like Now You See Me , and dramas such as Baz Lurhman's The Great Gatsby which Fisher notes was a career highlight. 'Baz was my best experience ever for so many reasons – because of the scale of the sets, the attention to detail visually,' she said. Isla Fisher claims her favourite role has been playing Myrtle Wilson in Baz Luhrmann's 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Credit: James Anastasi for Harper's Bazaar / supplied When asked what advice she would give to her 20-year-old self, Fisher alluded to the self-doubt she faced early in her career. 'In my twenties, I don't know if it was homesickness or just life challenges, but I used to cry a lot. I was so worried that I wasn't going to meet anybody or get a job that I wanted. So, I would tell [her], 'Don't worry. It all works out,'' she said. When considering future roles, Fisher is hoping to push herself out of her comfort zone to avoid slipping into being typecast. 'If you do a certain job and you nail that character, every time a character that's similar to that [comes up], a casting director will think of you. Now my goal is to be more fearless around my choices and to push myself into areas where there's room for growth,' Fisher reflects. Fisher admits she's had a 'tough couple of years.' Credit: James Anastasi for Harper's Bazaar / Supplied Fisher's personal life has been in the spotlight for the past few years following her split from actor Sacha Baron Cohen in 2023, after 14 years of marriage. Their divorce was finalised in June, though they have emphasised their mutual respect and commitment to co‑parenting their three children. 'I've had a tough couple of years, but I'm making it through,' remarks Fisher. 'I'm really excited for the next chapter. I'm refocusing on my career, because previously I was very much focused on my kids, which I still am, obviously, because (they're) my true love. But I'm enjoying tackling work again.' Fisher says she's embracing the huge change that comes with the challenge of moving forward post-divorce. 'That's been one of the benefits of a challenging situation: the luxury of asking myself, ' What would I like to do professionally and privately?' I'm trying to remind myself of my new identity as somebody outside of a partnership and to stay as buoyant as possible. Any time there's change, it's hard to adapt. But hopefully I'm doing an okay job, ' she said.
The Advertiser
06-06-2025
- The Advertiser
Step into the real Gilded Age on a glamorous escape from New York City
It's the type of evening activity I can imagine Jay Gatsby and his pals enjoying, decked out in Flapper gear and raising a glass of bubbles to the occasion. It's 100 years since F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was published, but the characters are still talked about and portrayed on Broadway in a terrific musical with the same name as the book. Set in the opulent worlds of Long Island and the bright lights of Manhattan, the story of mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby continues to enthral.
The Age
29-05-2025
- The Age
Sick puppy: Is Australian cinema on its last legs?
Australian cinema has always been an up-and-down affair in terms of quality and box office, with our share ranging from 23.5 per cent in 1986 to 2 per cent in 2023. And, of course, the global spectacles of Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, Australia, The Great Gatsby, Elvis) and George Miller (the Mad Max, Babe and Happy Feet franchises) have existed in a realm that you would barely call Australian films. But I cannot recall a time when Australian movies have generated so little interest, with the latest batch of releases — Magic Beach, The Lost Tiger, Spit and The Correspondent — barely registering on the consciousness of local filmgoers, despite stars such as David Wenham and Richard Roxburgh touring the country, attending previews and Q&A sessions and appearing on television and radio talk shows. The most vivid example of the lack of engagement Australian audiences have with their own cinema is the WA-set The Surfer, a Wake in Fright -inspired freak-out in which Nicolas Cage's increasingly frazzled businessman tangles with xenophobic surfers fighting to stop him from buying a beachside home. Even though The Surfer features an Oscar-winning movie legend whose arrival in Yallingup whipped up global Instagram interest and was rapturously received at the Cannes Film Festival, it went out on just 76 screens in Australia — Hoyts and Event Cinema are not even bothering — which means it was destined to attract only a tiny audience. While the loss of interest in Australian cinema is in lockstep with the demise of non-blockbuster movies across the globe caused by the COVID lockdown and, more significantly, the proliferation of streaming, that decline is more keenly felt here than in other territories because of our size and total immersion in American popular culture. Every now and then an Oz movie will conquer the world and fill us with pride. We all beamed with pride as George Miller's Fury Road leaped to the top of the lists of the greatest action films ever made. But the default source for big-screen entertainment in Australia is Hollywood, which is why both our film and television industry have been swamped by the streaming tsunami. Does it matter that audiences are no longer seeing movies on the big screen? The Surfer will soon be on Stan, where it will be watched by many more people, here and around the world, than during its brief window at the cinemas. What it means is that Australian movies are no longer part of the conversation as they were during the 1970s, when films such as Newsfront, Picnic At Hanging Rock and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith were integral to our national cultural revival, or the early 90s, with that explosion of lurid comedies (Muriel's Wedding, Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, Strictly Ballroom) that turned our passion for kitsch into a badge of honour. Even if a movie does get a screening it is quickly sucked into the streaming vortex, joining the dozens of series that simply never get talked about, even if they are high quality. I recently asked a group at a lecture I was giving if they had heard of the recent WA-made series Scrublands. They looked at each other, then at me with a deep sense of confusion, as if I was asking them if they had seen a black-and-white Hungarian art movie from the 1930s instead of a television series based on a popular novel and shot in Augusta. How little cultural impact Australian film and television makes once it enters the streaming black hole can be measured by Kurzel's The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Despite being one of the best dramas in memory, and based on a celebrated novel, it has barely been discussed. Here in WA the situation is even more dire, with the cross-border cultural cringe so intense that we get ignored by the country. Dirt Music, The Furnace, Sweet As, Blueback, Kid Snow, H is For Happiness – all major disappointments. Even David Vincent Smith's stunning He Ain't Heavy — for my money the best-ever film produced in WA — made pennies at the box office. Ironically, the decline in interest in Australian movies comes at a time when we are in the final stages of building a long dreamed-about movie studio in Malaga. Its purpose is to attract major productions from overseas (movies and television series) so that local talent can learn from the big boys and bring those skills to bear on their own productions. How will it look when we have a state-of-the-art movie filmmaking facility welcoming lavishly funded productions from around the world when our own films play to near empty cinemas? Loading Unless something is done about Australian cinema we risk looking like an offshore factory for Hollywood, a place that provides labor but none of the artistry and ideas. Or am I writing off Oz movies too quickly? Have we lost interest in Australian movies or are Australian filmmakers not giving us the kind of rich, full-blooded narratives that are entertaining as they are culturally relevant, as we have done at points in our history? Australian filmmakers need to once again make the kinds of movies that still audience who are still going to see sophisticated non-blockbuster films from the United States and Europe, such Conclave and A Complete Unknown, two hugely entertaining movies with a lot on their minds that managed to lure viewers off couches and into cinemas and take part in a conversation.
