I guess the bigger you dream, the further you have to fall if you don't get it, so it can be a bit of a scary thing to be that ambitious.
Elizabeth DebickiI don't have a story about an epiphany in which I suddenly realised I wanted to be an actor. It was much more a case of the idea dawning on me gradually.
Elizabeth DebickiThere's a lot to be said for being in a room with a casting agent or a director. There are things you can't really replicate when you're self-taping and there's the bonus of having someone to direct you, which is extremely helpful. The benefit of self-taping is, I suppose, being on your own clock. It's certainly more relaxing to self-tape than to audition with someone in the flesh but I don't know if it's necessarily better.
Elizabeth DebickiI grew up learning ballet and then I took up contemporary as I got older. I probably thought I was going to be a ballet dancer when I was younger, but at a certain age, I really was more interested in acting.
Elizabeth DebickiI was very new to working in front of the camera when I started shooting Gatsby, so I set myself the mission of gleaning as much information as possible out of the much more experienced actors. The cast was astoundingly talented.
Elizabeth DebickiI don't really look at the skillset of being an actor as different in each medium. It asks a different thing of you as an actor, but for me, I draw upon the same skillset. It's just a different tuning of your tools as to who you're doing it for, whether you're doing it for an intimate camera or an audience of 2,000 people.
Elizabeth Debicki