Quotes

I just wanted to try a different type of performance - ballet is more an image of perfection, and film can show a grittier side. Sometimes it's the more realistic topic of real life that really intrigues me.

When I decided to pursue acting at 15, I heard that you had to have an agent to do film and television, so I did a Google search for acting agencies in Sydney. I hounded one to take me on and started auditioning. I did some films in Australia, and then I started working in America on In Treatment (2008) when I was 17.

[on Jane Eyre (2011)] The challenge is that the book, start to finish, is Jane Eyre's internal monologue - everything we know is because of what we're hearing directly from her. So my concern was 'How do we keep that intensity?' I was excited about seeing how we could portray all that's going on inside, all that she's observing and feeling, thinking.

What I like about film is it explores imperfections. That was something that really attracted me.

I really love doing things that are different and challenge me in different ways. And I think to remain interested and excited by acting it's really great to have such diverse opportunities, and I feel really lucky that I've been able to do that so far.

It's never been about the blockbusters and making a huge ton of money. It's always been about wanting to do projects about the things that I think are important to be out there, because there's a lot of stuff that probably doesn't need to be.

My earliest childhood memory is walking down the corridor with my sister Jess in the middle of the night to see my brother Kai being born in the living room.

It's so unsatisfying to play a nice, sweet girl. It's so dreadfully boring and almost painful! I like to play characters who have their own fire.

I didn't have a typical teenagehood so I have a lot of repressed rebellious teen left over. Every now and then I'll act out in some unusual way.

Fourteen is that wonderful time in your life when you feel such extremes of emotions, you can feel the most incredible elation. It's when everything is still possible. It was this little adventure for me.

My mom remembers a period when I locked myself in my room and did research and made phone calls and wrote letters to try to get an agent.

I need the consistency of one place and people and friends. But I'll probably end up being the pregnant 30-year-old in the back of the class at university one day.

I think I have a reputation for being quite shy, but I don't think I'm too shy. I guess I lived in a bit of a fantasy space in my mind.

I have this funny thing that, if war breaks out, or if anything catastrophic goes down, I want to know that I can walk home.

[When asked about whether she can speak Polish.] Not very well. I can probably understand more than I could say, a few years ago I could say more Polish words.

[on what freedom meants to her] Knowing you have choices, never feeling beholden to any person, place or thing. Knowing who you are. It's a big conflict to slow things down or not take work because most of the time you're being told how lucky you are, how brilliant it is, how cool that you get to travel. You feel so terrible thinking, actually, I hate it.

[on advice she would give an actor starting out] If you really, really love it - keep going for sure. But my perspective on ambition, determination and pushing has changed in the past couple of years. I've done this job for 10 years all over the world. It's a bit of a cliche but, after a while, it leaves you feeling hollow.