Rising Aussie star Abbie Cornish was shocked by the public hatred she faced when linked romantically to co-star Ryan Phillippe and blamed her for the break-up of his marriage to Reese Witherspoon.

Cornish told our LA reporter Peta Hellard yesterday that she took six months away from acting to step out of the limelight after the experience.

“That was scary,” Cornish, 25, said. “I kept thinking, ‘Don’t pay attention to what they write’.

“With the media now, and especially the internet, there is not much you can do.

“I do find it strange that they express dislike and judge without having access to the truth – they say and do anything about anyone and it only generates hate.”

Cornish also denied reports she would be the next Bond girl – a suggestion made by fellow Australian actor Rose Byrne.

“It wasn’t a statement as much as it was a bit of a joke – poor Rose,” she said. “I’m not doing the Bond film.”

Cornish will begin shooting the Viking romance Last Battle Dreamer opposite Phillippe in England from next month.

“It’s essentially a love story but told amidst Viking battles,” she said. “There’s blood, there’s glory, there’s fighting, there’s wolves, there’s birth and death.

“I’m playing an English woman that a Viking (Phillippe) falls in love with when the Vikings come to pillage her city.”

Cornish has been seen several times with Phillippe since he split from Witherspoon.

Source: News.com.au