I remember preparing for my audition on the plane to L.A. — I was drawing all these weird vampire pictures and I am sure the gorgeous ladynext to me thought I was very odd.

Playing Lissa was the most thrilling, terrifying, uplifting, fulfilling, surprising, and experience of my life.

I read the first book about five times while I was preparing for the role. I really wanted to completely embody Lissa and, naturally the book gave me much deeper psychological and emotional insight into Lissa than the script.

As soon as we finished filming, I felt like I had been woken up from a magical dream and had to pinch myself to remember that it was real. Every scene is now a blur. I feel like I will be watching it for the first time with the rest of the world. I am nervous. But excited.

This year, I'm most thankful for the people around me who've supported me—my friends, and my family and boyfriend. It's been a really crazy year. There have been a lot of changes with moving to America and a lot of adjustments for my family and friends in Australia to let me go off on this journey and miss me a lot. I miss them a lot, but am so grateful for them.

I was a little hippie on a world backpacking adventure, and suddenly I became a vampire princess. I still find it hard to believe that it is real. I feel ludicrously lucky to have been chosen to play such a compassionate, complex character for my first film, and I am so grateful to all the beautiful people who made it possible for me. It was a dream come true. I felt like Cinderella every day, going to work with this amazing team on this dream script. If Cinderella were a vampire.

I remember preparing for my audition on the plane to L.A. — I was drawing all these weird vampire pictures and I am sure the gorgeous ladynext to me thought I was very odd.