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.

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.

I 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.

Every time I see a good play or watch a good movie, I have the same feeling I had as a child of wanting to be that person on stage or wanting to run through the forest with a big dress on.

There'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.

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.

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.