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.

The comforting thing for Australian actors is that there's a strong community in L.A. as well - it's almost like you swap one home for another. I didn't feel any pressure.

I 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.

I think my parents wanted me to do something very normal, have a normal person job and not be confronted by the instability of an artistic pursuit, but there wasn't really a lot they could do to stop me. I was, at one point, going to go to law school when I finished high school, but the next day I got accepted into acting school and there was no real question in my mind of what I was going to do.

I definitely try my best not to stay in character when I'm not on set, which can be more difficult in some roles than others.

I 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.

Our industry is so technologically driven that often I Skype with directors or send tapes in to people. It's so common now that sometimes even when I'm here I'll be send tapes for things that are based in the U.K. There's never really a right place, right time anymore. Even something that's L.A. based, the director might be in New York or they might be on location in Budapest. I think everyone's really accepting of the fact that people are all over the world all the time. In a funny way, you can be an actor now and live anywhere, so long as you have internet.