Australian actress Abbie Cornish took to the stage at the Taormina Film Festival on Thursday for a discussion on her career featuring Palme d’Or contender Bright Star, Oscar winner Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and crime thrillers Jack Ryan and Detained among some 50 credits.

Speaking to a youthful audience, Cornish said it was important to have a vision about where you want to go with your career and life.

“The more clear you are about the work you want to do, the kind of people you want to work with, the projects that you want to work on, this is definitive in terms of your future…  just to be clear with that, with the people around you,” she said.

Cornish started out as a teenage model before being offered her first role in Australian TV show Wildside, followed by her big screen debut The Monkey’s Mask.

“I won a modelling competition and an agent had sent me to an acting audition and I was lucky enough to get that role and I completely fell in love with acting,” she said.

Cornish revealed she had felt pressure around her appearance and size in the early years of her career but with time had come to love herself for what she is.

“As I became older, I realised I am who I am and I live the way I live. Of course, for some of my movies I’ve had to train to look a certain way, but I really think people are beautiful. We’re all different shapes and sizes and ethnicities,” she said.

“I learned as I grew up to embrace every single part of me and to get out of the minutia of maybe some mainstream culture that puts pressure, particularly on women.”

Looking back at here earlier career, Cornish said starring as Fanny Brawne in Jane Campion’s John Keats romantic drama Bright Star had been a defining experience.

“Shooting Bright Star was probably the deepest experience for me. I shot that movie in a very important time in my life. It was a movie about the loss of John Keats. There was something just emotionally deep. It was complicated and it was testing, but it was very rewarding.”

She praised Campion, who is the head of the jury at the Taormina Film Festival  this year, for her empathetic style of direction.

“Jane is an incredible director. She works so well with every crew member. The way that she speaks with her cast… it’s one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in my life.”

Cornish was asked on how Campion compared with Ridley Scott and Zack Snyder, who directed her in A Good Year (2006) and Sucker Punch (2011) respectively.

“It’s like playing sports with Zack Snyder. Ridley’s very laid back, think a glass of wine and a cigar, and Jane Campion is very poetic, passionate and intensive in the process.”

Cornish will be seen next in Trust Me, I’m a Doctor starring Dhirendra as Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, whose life was turned upside down when he was implicated in the death of his former patient, model and reality TV star, Anna Nicole Smith.“I was lucky enough to play Anna Nicole Smith in that movie, which was just incredible.” she said, revealing the movie is due out in September.

She has also recently finished shooting limited crime series Invisible, set against South Africa’s Kruger National Park where a vigilante has started killing poachers.

“I had never played a big role in a limited series. Shooting in South Africa was a really interesting experience, mostly in Cape Town and outside of Cape Town,” she said.

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