Isla Fisher tributes her work to fiance

[alexx]

Isla Fisher tributes her work to fiance

Monday Sep 11 11:27 AEST

Australian actor Isla Fisher is making a name for herself with comedy but says she would not have got into it if it wasn't for her fiance Sacha Baron Cohen.

The former Home and Away star says Cohen, better known as the outrageous TV character, Ali G, encouraged her to take up comedy.

"Sacha got me into comedy," Fisher said at the Toronto International Film Festival, where her latest film, The Pleasure of Your Company, is screening.

"I always knew that at school I was the class clown ... I have always been the one to make a fool out of myself to get a laugh at a party or wherever I have been in my life, but I have never really associated that with doing it publicly in such a large arena.

"But then Sacha was like, 'you are so funny, you are the funniest woman I know - you should be doing comedy'."

It was then that Fisher auditioned for her first big Hollywood role, scoring a lead in last year's Wedding Crashers.

And the risk seems to have paid off.

"Since I started doing what I like to do on camera, I have had a lot more success so it is interesting," she said.

"When you try to suppress yourself and be really serious, people just don't buy it."

Fisher, 30, is probably best known to Australians for playing Shannon Reed on long-running Seven Network soap opera Home and Away in the mid-90s.

But in recent years she's been based between London and Los Angeles, and has established herself as an up and coming film star.

And that is where she wants to be.

"It is very different being approached for something that you are proud of having done like Wedding Crashers, which I really put myself on the line for.

"It is very different from something like Home and Away where people would come up and they didn't really have the same respect for you because you are part of the machine that was a television show. It was less about your own creative input into something and more about the regularity of seeing you, not that I am in any way criticising that."

Fisher recently finished production on The Lookout, co-starring Jeff Daniels and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and she's currently shooting Hot Rod with Sissy Spacek.

Her next film will be Definitely Maybe with Oscar winner Rachel Weisz and Ryan Reynolds.

Despite her rise in Hollywood, Fisher insists there is no plan.

"I am honestly not trying to have some contrived career where I implement a strategy," she said.

"I just don't believe in any of that. I like to try to stay true to being an artist and do stuff that really appeals to me, whatever attracts me for whatever reason, whether it is the cast or the script or something that just makes my heart sing."

"I am someone who loves what I do and I feel really lucky to be here. I just want to do jobs that make me happy and not try to plan for something that would just ruin my privacy anyway."

[griseknoen]

Thanks for posting.

I`m really pleased to see that Isla is enjoying herself with what she does. Hope she`ll be even more successful in the future.

[claire_louise]

Thanks Alex, it's so lovely to hear things about Isla. She was my heroine when I was a kid and I'm so pleased she's doing well. Four films on the go, that's amazing! I just wish she'd write some more books.