GALLERY LINKS:
- Bright Star: DVD Screencaptures

I will be adding screencaptures of Abbie’s breathtaking performance as Fanny Brawne in the near future. Stay tuned!

GALLERY LINKS:
- Bright Star: Last Uploads

I started by doing updates on the projects section. Film pages have been added for W.E. and The Dark Fields, Abbie’s two new films, and the information on Sucker Punch and Bright Star has been updated.

I also updated the Awards & Nominations page with details on the awards Abbie was nominated in 2010 and 2009 as well as updated the Rumored Projects with some details on Wuthering Heights, the film that Abbie dropped out of last year.

Don’t forget that you can follow the updates of Abbie Cornish Online over at Twitter @abbiecornishcom!

Abbie wore a halter-style black dress with a snazzy beaded neckline and diamonds and amethysts from Martin Katz Jewelry. She carried a black clutch and wore purple eyeline (which really brings out her stunning eyes if I say so myself.)

Reportedly she caught up with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including her good friend and Somersault co-star Sam Worthington, Sucker Punch co-star Vanessa Hudgens and Oscar nominee Carey Mulligan as well as Best Director winner Kathryn Bigelow.

Unfortunately, Bright Star did not win Best Costume Design. That award went to The Young Victoria.

The Australian-born actress, who was generating Oscar-buzz for her performance as Brawne, prior to Feb. 2 when she was left out of the nominations, still hasn’t had a chance to see the special features on the DVD.

“When I’m working, I don’t worry about that behind-the-scenes camera,” she said. “The behind-the-scenes camera is behind the scenes, so I wasn’t sure what they put on there. It’s not where my head is at when I’m making a film.”

The bonuses have a few featurettes with writer-director Jane Campion (The Piano) talking about what went into the film, and a deleted scene.

Cornish said her role as Brawne had been “brewing for a while,” as the shoot date was pushed back several times. She said she spent several weeks researching Keats, but had to develop the role of Brawne on her own.

“There’s not much historically about her. I knew the name John Keats before I read the script, but I didn’t know anything about her,” she said. “[The script] swept me off my feet. The poetry in the film was just beautiful.”

As for working with Campion, Cornish said the Academy Award-winner was “compassionate, sensitive and made you feel comfortable.”

“But you also worked really hard. She made you give more than 100%,” Cornish said.

Sadly, Bright Star didn’t get a Blu-ray Disc release, though Cornish is hoping Sony will revisit that in the future. She said she especially enjoys older films in high-def, of which actor and boyfriend Ryan Philippe apparently has a large collection.

“When you watch an older film in high-def, you can’t believe the quality,” she said. “It’s like watching it for the very first time.”

Source: Home Media Magazine

DVD Features include:
- 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
- English DD5.1
- English subtitles
- Deleted Scene
- An Inspiring Romance Featurette
- Becoming Keats and Fanny Featurette
- Setting the Scene Featurette

Source: Variety.com

Cornish jumped on the phone earlier today to discuss Bright Star, but it was her enthusiasm for Punch which was most apparent. Shooting began in Vancouver last month and Cornish says Snyder’s latest is “seriously, six films in one almost.”

An original story by Snyder and Steve Shibuya, Sucker centers on Baby Doll (Emily Browning), a young girl trying to escape a fate of being lobotomized by her evil stepfather. In order to do so, she believes she has to steal five objects before she is caught by a vile man. With only five days until the operation she descends into different imaginary worlds searching for the objects and recruits some of her institutionalized friends to help. Sweetpea is one of those buddies and Cornish says you have to imagine her character like a cube, each with a different side in every dimension.

“In these different worlds you’re constantly turning it and different parts of this character [appear],” Cornish says. “I have had a field day not only play the girl in the psych ward, but the girl in crazy action sequences killing 20 guys in row. Every day is different on this film.”

I’d spoken to another “Sucker” lady, Vanessa Hudgens, before shooting began and the actress was visibly pumped up about her own character’s massive gun. It turns out her co-stars are in awe of the weapon as well.

“Vanessa definitely has the biggest gun. It’s called ‘the saw’ and one day Jena Malone and I fired that gun off for fun, just for therapy,” Cornish says. “It has this blast of light that is so intense. I can see why she’s so fascinated.”

Cornish’s Sweetpea is no slouch, however. The actress notes, “I have a good shot gun, a knife and a broad four.”

Moreover, Sucker Punch is a completely different animal than Bright Star, but it’s the period drama that may put Cornish in a whole new stratosphere.

Already one of the better-reviewed films of the year, “Bright” finds Cornish portraying Frances “Fanny” Brawne, the true love of legendary British poet John Keats (played by Ben Whishaw). The film depicts their unconventional romance that was cut short by Keats’ untimely death at the age of 25. Bright Star is actually the name of one of his most famous poems that professes his love for Brawne. Cornish said that while the letters that documented their affair were helpful the biggest assist came from Keats’ poems themselves.

Cornish says, “Just to read Bright Star again helped so much to understand their relationship and the trials and tribulations.”

Both leads received strong notices for their work, but it’s Cornish’s performance that has garnered the most attention. But even while Cornish may be a major player for year-end awards, she insists she couldn’t have done it without Whishaw’s support.

“Sometimes as an actor your job is made a whole lot easer by being alongside an actor that you admire and respect,” Cornish says. “I absolutely love Ben. I think he’s just a gorgeous human being. To be able to work that way — really makes it a much more pleasant and, I guess, easy experience to go through. It’s not just two people going to work doing their job.”

As the weeks go by, however, Cornish is slowly joining a select group of candidates for the best actress Oscar. That can be daunting for anyone, but Cornish honestly sounds perplexed regarding the increasing buzz.

“I think I am still figuring out how I feel about the whole thing,” Cornish says. “I definitely am so excited that the film is being received the way that it is. Really, it’s a great honor for me for people to say the things they are saying. Bright Star was a very passionate experience. We all put a lot of ourselves in that film and it meant so much to us and it still means so much to us.”

Cornish adds, “I have never been through this experience before, it’s all so new to me.”

Unless some surprise contenders appear on the scene, Cornish will be an old pro by the time Oscar comes around.

Bright Star is now playing in select cities across the country.

Source: Hitflix

As the maligned and socially imprisoned Brawne, Cornish gives one of those ferocious performances that audiences love to cheer. Her Brawne is a strong, witty and determined proto-feminist, a steel buttercup who only looks like a delicate confection made from milk, butter, and spider-web icing.

If she has the energy, Abbie Cornish really ought to give herself a good pat on the back.

Actresses have told me that working with a female director is different than working with a male director. You’ve worked with a handful of women, and just finished working with a female director. So, does it make a difference?

Uhh … in some ways yeah, but the difference is not so striking that I could just compartmentalize all the male directors and all the female directors that I’ve worked with into their own boxes. I mean, I definitely know working with Cate Shortland on Somersault , my first film, was amazing. We talked to each other a lot in rehearsals, really full on, and we did a lot of hashing out of the script and scenes and characters – so when we went to shoot, we hardly spoke! We just did it.

Was it the same with Jane Campion ?

No, Jane likes to keep a constant dialogue. And things change and shift when you’re on set, and in the clothes. But, I just, I don’t know … I think with female directors there’s more emotional sensitivity attached to the process of making the film and talking with actors. But the investment in the project and the story is similar. I worked with Shekhar Kapur in Elizabeth: The Golden Age , and he’s incredible. He’s a very sensitive guy, very aware, and very switched on – kind of a little bit similar to Jane, in just how connected they are. They are both extremely visual, very smart directors with a lot of wisdom behind them.

Bright Star is set circa 1819. Did you have to learn to carry yourself and speak in a way that matched the era?

I did, but it surprisingly came quite naturally. You know, I think when you’re in those clothes that already makes you go like this [sits bolt upright, as if in a binding dress]. It definitely changes things. And I read as much as I could, as much as I could find, and I did a lot of work on the dialect as well, I had this really great dialect coach, and we did intensive work. All that definitely helps, but at the end of the day, once I found her voice, that was the best – I could just switch in and out of her [Brawne], and she seemed complete then, because I couldn’t do Fanny Brawne with my Australian accent! Ha! It doesn’t work at all!

This is a film about poetry – how it is created and how it affects people. And while audiences seem to love it, nobody reads poetry any more .

I’ve always been interested in poetry. I remember in school I used to love when we would do poetry. We would talk about what the poet was trying to say, the rhythms, the structure of the poem, and finding the tempo. I used to love it, like, front row.

Excuse the flattery, but you are very beautiful in this film (and in person). What’s it like to be filmed as if you’re an objet d’art?

It’s funny that you say that, I haven’t really thought that at all … I don’t know, I mean … yeah, I dunno. I’ve never felt that, didn’t feel that.

I’m assuming you’ve seen the film?

Ha! Yeah, I have seen it, but I guess I just see that as all Jane’s work. She’s filmed everything so well. Also, that’s not how I look at things, do I look good or not – I was just so into the film. When I saw it in Cannes, I really was watching the movie, I wasn’t watching myself.

Films about artists rarely get it right, because they never show the actual working lives of artists. In this film, your character is a clothing designer, and we see her making everything by hand. Did you have a sewing coach?

I did have to learn how to sew, but it was fun, because I like sewing anyway, and I already knew how to sew, um, a little bit. Ha! But learning the proper way, how to hem things, different stitches, how to embroider. The only thing was, it was really time consuming. I had this one piece of embroidery I was working on, it was just freestyle flowers and vines, but it just took me forever and ever! I’d sit at home and kind of get into it for about 45 minutes, and then I’d be like, “Okay, I’m done with that!”

Are you tired of being told how much you resemble the young Nicole Kidman?

It happens to me a lot! Especially when I do interviews.

Well, sorry. But it’s not like we’re all saying ‘You remind us of Jack Klugman.’

Ha! I don’t know what the comparisons are – physical, or because we’ve both worked with Jane? But I don’t really mind. I don’t mind at all. It’s flattering, and, ultimately, it’s only someone else’s opinion.

Source: Globe & Mail

Turns out though, she’s more of a TuPac. “Yeah for sure [I'm a romantic],” she said. “I do read and write poetry and lyrics as well. I love music. Music’s a big thing for me. I guess the most contemporary version of poetry would be rap and hip-hop. And I love hip hop. I emcee. I’m a rapper as well.”

Unfortunately, Abbie wouldn’t spit a rhyme or two for us but promises that “next time” she meets up with reporter Josh Horowitz then she just might do it. And, maybe next time she’ll also bring a few of the poems that she says have been written about her by lovers- past, and, perhaps, present.

“Ah yeah,” she responded when asked if she’s ever had a real-life suitor write her romantic poems. But she wouldn’t reveal if one of those suitors include Ryan Phillippe. “Oh, take it easy! Good try though.”

Ask a question of Abbie Cornish and before she answers, she puts her head in her hands and practically stares through the table.

All those pauses – not to mention Cornish’s sharp features and long, blonde hair – can remind you of Nicole Kidman, who also doesn’t serve up easy answers to an interviewer. They’re both Australian, but at 27, Cornish is more than a decade younger. They both have been tabloid magnets – Kidman for all the reasons you know, Cornish as the gossiped-about girlfriend of Ryan Phillippe, ex-husband of Reese Witherspoon.

On screen, however, the resemblance disappears. Cornish seems only like herself, an intense actor with vast capacities for radiance and volatility.

She’s made smart professional choices with supporting parts in smallish films. In A Good Year (2006) she was the backpacking wine-lover who surprises Russell Crowe in Provence. The following year, she was the lady-in-waiting who incurred Cate Blanchett’s wrath by seducing Clive Owen in Elizabeth: The Golden Age.’

Now Bright Star, which opens Friday, puts her at the center of a movie and under the tutelage of no less than Jane Campion, who directed Holly Hunter to an Oscar in The Piano.

Set in the early 19th century, it’s a period romance starring Cornish as Fanny Brawne, an outspoken fan of John Keats’s poetry. She befriends Keats (Ben Whishaw) and falls madly in love with him. But his poverty keeps them from being married, and he dies at 25 of tuberculosis.

Brawne is independent-minded and able to articulate why a piece of writing is beautiful or flawed. She’s also a talented fashion designer, sewing her own clothes – elaborate, flamboyant garments with detailed flourishes. The idea, in part, is that this woman’s sewing is as valid a form of self-expression as Keats’s poetry.

Campion said that working with Cornish and Whishaw was different from older actors she’s worked with. “They don’t talk much, which I’m not used to. They have it all figured out, Abbie and Ben.’’

You mean they think they do? “No, they really do. They’re terribly smart and very instinctive creatures.’’

The director mentioned that Cornish bristled with an energy she’d never quite experienced in an actor before. “She’s like a little racehorse,’’ Campion said, laughing. “She jiggles on the side of the camera. According to her, she can’t wait to get going once she hears that camera whirring. And it’s like that in-the-moment buzz. Some people climb mountains to get that feeling. She performs.’’

Cornish came to the Toronto International Film Festival for the North American premiere of Bright Star. She had just started production on Sucker Punch, an all-woman action-fantasy with Vanessa Hudgens and Jena Malone, directed by Zack Snyder, who made 300 and The Watchmen.

Campion’s description of Cornish’s preparation cracked the actress up. “I’m definitely there ready to go,’’ she said.

But there’s also a practical reason for her energy. “I don’t see the point in dillydallying around,’’ she said. “If they need you on set, then you’re on set. As soon as action is called and the camera’s rolling, that’s the moment.’’

That vigor courses quietly through Cornish’s Bright Star performance. The chance to make a character feel completely alive in a costume drama excited her. “Fanny had a lot of gusto,’’ she said. “I could feel that. And Jane wanting to emphasize that made it, in some ways, easier for me to play. [Fanny] wouldn’t be helpless. She’d be vulnerable, sure, but strong.’’

The Snyder movie appealed to Cornish as a chance to do “something really physical, something I could train for, where I had to learn special skills.

“After Bright Star, my skin was translucent, I was so pale.’’ Cornish said. “I felt unfit and unhealthy. And as a bounce-back, I thought it’d be fun to do something where I’m training throughout the whole movie.’’ So that would explain the intimidating tone of her arms.

She doesn’t like to work for working’s sake. She has other areas of her life to maintain. “When I’m not making movies, I’m painting, making music, being with family and friends, which is more important to me than my career,.’’ she said. Cornish plays guitar and piano, makes hip-hop beats, and raps. That shouldn’t be surprising. And yet when the woman sitting across from you, wearing a black lace Vera Wang evening gown and a black cocktail jacket (to fend off the hotel’s chill) says, “I do some rapping,’’ your eyebrow can’t help itself. It just arches.

“My plan is to record an album in the next couple of years. The bummer is that I don’t have enough time to do everything I want to do. But’’ – she lifted the tablecloth and knocked on wood – “I’ll be around long enough to have time to do it all.’’

The reason you root for Cornish to make the time is that Campion is right. She does seem to have herself figured out. It’s no fun hungering for adult movie stars and seeing only insecure starlets. No one wants Meryl Streep’s career. They want Demi Moore’s body.

Unlike, say, Megan Fox, Cornish doesn’t appear to have a naked need for approval. She acts because she’s good at it. She’s already given two impressive, emotionally grueling performances, one as a drug addict with Heath Ledger in Candy and another as a soldier’s girlfriend in Kimberly Peirce’s Stop-Loss. If she wants to rap, she at least leaves you eager to hear what she’d say.

Source: The Boston Globe

The 19th century gentlewoman Fanny Brawne might have been lost to history were it not for her love affair with the great romantic poet John Keats. Most certainly, Brawne would have been lost to the Twitterati generation were it not for 27-year-old Abbie Cornish’s interpretation of her in Jane Campion’s Bright Star, which chronicles her attachment to Keats, who died of tuberculosis at 25. The film opens Friday.

“They seemed like two peas in a pod,” Cornish says of the couple. “The sense of humor, the sensitivity that was in her was also in him. That was a very rare thing to run into a man like that for her. She grew up in the country. She was just very enthralled by his zest and enthusiasm, and his appreciation of beauty and the smaller things.”

As portrayed by Cornish, Brawne is young in years but not in maturity, and is filled with unexpressed brio. From her first audition, Cornish brought unusual strength to the role, says Campion, who has created vivid female characters in such films as Sweetie, An Angel at My Table and the Oscar-winning The Piano.

“She was very different from the way others played the character. They were scared, a little wounded,” says Campion, explaining that Cornish played Brawne “mentally very healthy. A little young. A little bit of a fashionista, a little ridiculous. Then [Fanny] found her moral courage and strength. She falls in love. It was very winning. You look back on the audition tape and couldn’t watch it without falling in love with her.”

On a recent Saturday morning, Cornish showed up for tea at the Chateau Marmont, not far from her home in Los Angeles, where she’s lived for the last year. She wears a simple black structured sundress, her hair freshly washed, and radiates a kind of farm-fresh wholesomeness.

It turns out Cornish actually grew up on a 170-acre farm along with four siblings and a brood of animals, including a baby kangaroo that slept in a sling hung from her doorknob. “Casey Rooster was his name. It was like having a dog in kangaroo form. You could call him from across the paddock and he’d come bounding up and follow you around,” she says with a laugh.

She also seems possessed by a free-spirited, independent quality. This is a girl who stumbled into acting after winning a modeling contest as a teenager, worked in Australian TV, and then upon high school graduation, traveled alone through Europe and America.

“The only time I felt any sort of fear or realization of what I was doing was after my mum dropped me off at the airport,” she says. “My mum is so strong and she had tears in her eyes. As a child when you see tears in a mother’s eyes, it makes you think.”

“I think she shows an incredible amount of independence for someone so young,” Campion says. “Fanny is very similar to Abbie. She takes her own advice. She goes against the perceived wisdom of her friends.”

Cornish did return from her travels in one piece, and seized the attention of the Australian film industry with her first major role in 2004′s “Somersault.” In it, she plays Heidi, a sexually inquisitive teenager who runs away from home, a part imbued with an unexpected and heartbreaking curiosity.

Cornish serendipitously found her way into the character when she came across a huge concave metal semicircle — an art installation at a local gallery. As she walked toward it, she watched her various reflections in the metallic surface and felt the instinct to let out a little song — “Coo-ee,” which vibrated and echoed. “I was like, ‘This is so Heidi. She’d sit here and make weird noises and play with it.’ I then explored this art exploration as the character. It was such a huge key into her mind frame, and it just came from nowhere.

“Sometimes you have this puzzle” — a character — “and you force pieces in,” she explains. Other parts are “researched or are history, or what other people tell you. Sometimes, it’s just, ‘I don’t know.’ They shift and slide and when you’re open to it, it all seems to fall in place.”

For Fanny Brawne, Cornish went to the books, specifically Brawne’s letters to Keats’ sister, and her diary. “That was an incredible love for her. The pain of his death never went away.”

There was also, of course, Keats’ poetry — including the work that inspired the film’s title, which reads in part: “Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art” — and his letters to Brawne.

“You read them and it melts your heart and spurs your imagination,” says Cornish, though she adds, “you do as much research and experimentation as you can until you feel like that character is in your mind, your spirit, your skin and your body, and then you trust it and let it go. You let the moments be what they are.”

Source: LA Times

Most certainly, Brawne would have been lost to the Twitterati generation were it not for 27-year-old Abbie Cornish, who portrays Brawne in Jane Campion’s Bright Star, which opens Friday. It chronicles Brawne’s attachment to Keats, who died of tuberculosis at 25.

“They seemed like two peas in a pod,” Cornish said of the couple. “The sense of humor, the sensitivity that was in her was also in him. That was a very rare thing to run into a man like that for her. She grew up in the country. She was just very enthralled by his zest and enthusiasm, and his appreciation of beauty and the smaller things.”

As portrayed by Cornish, Brawne is young in years but not in maturity and is filled with unexpressed brio. From her first audition, Cornish brought unusual strength to the role, says Campion, who has created vivid female characters in such films as Sweetie, An Angel at My Table and the Oscar-winning The Piano.

“She was very different from the way others played the character. They were scared, a little wounded,” says Campion, explaining that Cornish played Brawne “mentally very healthy. Then (Fanny) found her moral courage and strength. She falls in love. It was very winning. You look back on the audition tape and couldn’t watch it without falling in love with her.”

“I think (Cornish) shows an incredible amount of independence for someone so young,” Campion said. “Fanny is very similar to Abbie. She takes her own advice. She goes against the perceived wisdom of her friends.”

Cornish grew up on a 170-acre Australian farm along with four siblings and a brood of animals, including a baby kangaroo that slept in a sling hung from her doorknob.

“Casey Rooster was his name,” she said. “It was like having a dog in kangaroo form. You could call him from across the paddock, and he’d come bounding up and follow you around.”

Cornish also seems possessed by a free-spirited, independent quality. This is a girl who stumbled into acting after winning a modeling contest as a teenager, worked in Australian TV and then upon high school graduation traveled alone through Europe and America.

“The only time I felt any sort of fear or realization of what I was doing was after my mom dropped me off at the airport,” she said. “My mom is so strong and she had tears in her eyes. As a child when you see tears in a mother’s eyes, it makes you think.”

Cornish did return from her travels in one piece and seized the attention of the Australian film industry with her first major role in 2004’s “Somersault.” In it, she played Heidi, a sexually inquisitive teenager who runs away from home.

To play Brawne, Cornish went to the books, specifically Brawne’s letters to Keats’ sister, and her diary.

“That was an incredible love for her,” Cornish said. “The pain of his death never went away.”

There was also, of course, Keats’ poetry — including the work that inspired the film’s title, which reads in part: “Bright Star, would I were steadfast as thou art” — and his letters to Brawne.

“You read them and it melts your heart and spurs your imagination,” Cornish said. “You do as much research and experimentation as you can until you feel like that character is in your mind, your spirit, your skin and your body, and then you trust it and let it go. You let the moments be what they are.”

Source: Kansas City Star

From: NY Times

The movie really belongs to Brawne, played with mesmerizing vitality and heart-stopping grace by Abbie Cornish.

Ms. Cornish, an Australian actress whose previous films include Stop-Loss, Candy and Somersault, has, at 27, achieved a mixture of unguardedness and self-control matched by few actresses of any age or nationality. She’s as good as Kate Winslet, which is about as good as it’s possible to be.

From: EW

But Campion’s big-sisterly encouragement of Cornish’s lovely, openhearted performance — and Whishaw’s well-matched response — results in a character instantly, intimately recognizable to anyone remembering her own first love.

From: Rolling Stone

And Cornish is glorious, making Fanny a force of womanhood able to take on Brown (Schneider is a sharply witty irritant) when he tries to break the connection between her and her beloved. Cornish catches the fertile mind that Fanny poignantly tries to nurture, knowing she’ll grow closer to Keats by deciphering the words that possess him.

From: Buzz Sugar
The force that really carries the movie is Abbie Cornish’s portrayal of Fanny Brawne; the film belongs to her and her emotional portrayal of the girl left behind. She makes you feel every stage of her involvement with Keats, from crush to infatuation to heartbreak when she fears she’s been forgotten — and finally, to devastation when she loses her beloved to death. It’s almost unbelievable that Brawne was supposed to have been seen as a silly girl only interested in fashion and flirting, because Cornish plays her so earnestly and with so much depth.

From: San Fransisco Chronicle

When Brawne (Abbie Cornish) first meets Keats in 1818, she’s unimpressed but flirts with him anyway. Cornish and Whishaw bring off a quiet but considerable feat: They portray monumental emotions with barely a glance or a brush of skin. And as the plot demands more melodrama, they dish out swooning erotic malaise.

EXTERNAL VIDEO LINKS:
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If home is where the heart is, as the saying goes, then for the past year, Australian­-born actress Abbie Cornish’s home has been in Los Angeles, where she shares a house with Ryan Phillippe not far from where she’s sitting at the Chateau Marmont on a recent summer afternoon.

“I guess I was lucky because it was love that brought me here, not work,” says the 27-year-old Cornish, the star of Jane Campion’s new movie, Bright Star, as she unexpectedly allows a bland question about residency to steer the talk from professional accomplishments to personal attachments. “I think the city feels and looks a little bit different because of that.”

Why she broaches the subject of romance is inexplicable, since Cornish stiffens when asked directly about her boyfriend. As any celebrity junkie knows, the couple met two years ago on the set of Stop-Loss, the first movie Cornish shot in America after having worked abroad alongside Heath Ledger in Candy, in 2006, and with Russell Crowe in Ridley Scott’s A Good Year. At the time, Phillippe was married to Reese Witherspoon, and when word of the golden couple’s separation leaked to the front pages, Cornish was cast as the culprit, an alluring other woman who tempted Phillippe away from the best-paid and possibly best-loved actress of her generation.

“It was a really difficult time for me,” admits Cornish, who is polite and guarded in demeanor but nonetheless exudes a kind of earthy, unkempt sensuality. “It was just this world of tabloid magazines that I’d never been exposed to. In a normal successful career, someone usually learns these things bit by bit. For me, it was like night and day. I woke up one day and there was this whole new thing I had to process and deal with.”

Cornish seems aware that she’ll have to “deal with” at least some additional measure of personal scrutiny during this interview, and her body language shows that she doesn’t enjoy the prospect. She untucks her legs from beneath her to place her feet more firmly on the ground and raises a hand to cover a pale mole on her left cheek as if it were a secret part of her.

“Have you spent time with Ryan and Reese’s two kids?”

“Of course, yeah.”

Cornish glances to the wicker table beside her, perhaps hoping to find distraction in the plate of berries, glass of rosé and packet of cigarettes there.

“Are you and Ryan engaged?”

“No.”

“Do you have plans in that direction?”

“I don’t know,” she says, adding with a tense laugh, “I think I’m nearly ready to go on to another part of the conversation.”

Unsanctioned love, albeit a wholly chaste one, also lies at the heart of Cornish’s performance as Fanny Brawne in the historical romance Bright Star, which is based on the life of Romantic poet John Keats. With its visual splendor and sense of suspended time, the film will evoke for many The Piano, Campion’s Oscar winner, while mesmerizing performances by Cornish and Ben Whishaw, as the scissors-thin Keats, will kick off this year’s race for the Oscars.

But Cornish may not be able to continue vacationing so avidly now that her star is on the rise. Her next screen appearance will be in Sucker Punch from Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen), which, based on her description, sounds like Charlie’s Angels meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest rolled into The Matrix. The six-month big-budget shoot will be the long­est of her career to date.

“It’s a little bit scary,” Cornish admits, the glass of wine beside her now empty. “But the intensity and focus of it is what I enjoy. It’s not like you put your toe in the water and wade around a little. You just dive in the deep end, swim around and then come out the other side. I like that feeling.”

For Cornish, Bright Star was a chance to work with a woman who is both a hero down under and one of the most acclaimed directors in film. “Jane has this amazing ability to create a world,” says Cornish, who had met her only once briefly before auditioning for the role of Fanny. “It’s almost like you can feel the breeze. You can smell the flowers. You can sense the cold.”

Bright Star recounts the story of Keats and the young woman he was smitten with until his death, in 1821, of tuberculosis, and its intellectual sensibility makes even relatively highbrow movies like 2007’s Atonement seem made for the masses. Campion depicts daily life in Georgian England with a scholarly attention to detail, and the literary script, which she wrote herself, may appeal to the most persnickety English professor. And as for the public’s interest in such refinements? The film’s premiere in Cannes was a highlight of the festival. “People seemed to love it,” says Cornish. “They seemed to absorb what you hoped they would absorb.”

Campion first stumbled onto the love story by chance while she was researching a different film about a writing teacher and happened to pick up a biography of Keats. The dusty history leapt to life with Fanny’s entrance, and Campion admits to sobbing when she got to Keats’s death. She went on to read the poet’s letters to Fanny and realized they were an “incredibly detailed portrait of a love affair” that could be told onscreen.

“Keats had laughed at romance as a distraction from the things that mattered, like poetry,” Campion says during a phone call from her home in Australia. “But then he fell in love. He wrote Fanny the most beautiful love letters that exist in the English language. They naturally record an excessive outpouring of emotions, but Keats had the skills as a writer to describe them.”

Cornish recalls that she was equally swept away when she read Campion’s script. “It was just beautiful,” she says. “You melted away into that world. The love story, the loss, Fanny’s character, that all felt very real to me and very alive.”

As a consummate Romantic heroine, Fanny may seem to be a role custom-made for an English rose like Keira Knightley. Campion acknowledges that a big star would have made finding financing easier, but she decided that a less famous presence might suit the story better. (“I love Keira Knightley,” says Campion, “but she’s done so much that she seems to our collective knowledge much older than she is.”) What’s more, Campion notes with delight, a New Zealand–born director working with an Australian actress to tell this particular tale is actually the epitome of historical accuracy.

“These were not wealthy people,” she says of the characters. The Brawne family scrimped to maintain appearances, while Keats and his best friend, Charles Armitage Brown, lived in penury. “These were the class of people who emigrated from Georgian England. Keats’s brother went to America. Brown actually went to New Zealand. So I’m exactly the class of Keats, or my ancestors were. It’s very English to leave England.”

Cornish plays Fanny as a proper if strong-headed girl—Campion was surprised to see the degree to which the actress, whom she describes as rather shy, made Brawne “funny and bold.” Fanny finds her creative outlet in sewing, so Cornish learned to sew for the part in addition to studying with a dialogue coach. Still, she says getting into character was easy after three intense weeks of rehearsal with Campion and Whishaw.

“We had all this time,” recalls Cornish, noting that the unhurried rehearsals matched the deliberate preindustrial pace of the finished film, which was shot outside London. “If there was a scene where the characters are out walking, then we’d go to a park and run it while walking. Things started to come alive.”

What won’t make sense to most viewers is how—or even why—Keats and Brawne never consummated their love. “Keats had had sexual experiences before,” says Cornish, “but he decided not to do that with Fanny because he knew he was going to die. He had this whole precious idea of her.”

The bucolic world of Bright Star is not entirely unfamiliar to Cornish. She and her four siblings, who range in age from 14 to 28, grew up on a 170-acre family farm north of Sydney, where her childhood chores included hanging laundry to dry and feeding the horses. At 15, she won a modeling competition in Sydney, and her agency sent her to an acting audition. Cornish nailed it and got her first role, as a quadriplegic on a hospital drama.

“When I got on the set, it was like I’d stepped into the television box,” says Cornish, recalling her wonder at learning how a show was put together. “I was like, ‘Oh gosh, this is how it works.’ It was like a puzzle that I didn’t even know existed.”

Despite a zest for travel that kept her away from home for long stretches, Cornish managed to land heavy-duty roles in Australia as a teenage sexual adventuress in 2004’s Somersault and a heroin addict in Candy. Those performances opened the way to such prestige fare as A Good Year and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, in which she played lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton to Cate Blanchett’s monarch. Neither film, though, had the box office draw or critical appeal to make Cornish a household name—that didn’t happen until she met Phillippe on Stop-Loss. These days she still travels regularly for pleasure, to favorite locales including Spain, Italy and Brazil.

But Cornish may not be able to continue vacationing so avidly now that her star is on the rise. Her next screen appearance will be in Sucker Punch from Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen), which, based on her description, sounds like Charlie’s Angels meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest rolled into The Matrix. The six-month big-budget shoot will be the long­est of her career to date.

“It’s a little bit scary,” Cornish admits, the glass of wine beside her now empty. “But the intensity and focus of it is what I enjoy. It’s not like you put your toe in the water and wade around a little. You just dive in the deep end, swim around and then come out the other side. I like that feeling.”

Jane Campion’s “Bright Star” is probably the most likely film from the Cannes competition to make inroads with awards season. Campion is one of only three women to be nominated for a best director Oscar (for The Piano, back in 1993). And while her Bright Star didn’t win over the Cannes jury, it’s got the Academy written all over it: Brit-produced, beautifully shot, romantic period piece that’s likely to be a big hit with critics. Stars Ben Winshaw and Abbie Cornish seem like they have shots at lead acting nods, Paul Schneider has been singled out for his supporting performance, and art direction and costume design nominations seem as likely as Up getting an animated feature nod at this point. If the film takes off when it’s released this fall, denying Campion nods for her screenplay and perhaps even directing might be hard for a group that has vastly under-rewarded women in these categories.

Source: IndieWire

On Friday night the 26-year-old looked every bit the movie star as she stepped onto the red carpet for the opening of the world’s most prestigious film festival, on the French Riviera.

Wearing a lavender gown by Australian designer Toni Maticevski, Cornish lived up to her promise as the leader of Australia’s next generation of film stars.

Standing alongside her co-stars and the director of Bright Star, Jane Campion, Cornish showed the confidence and poise of a future Oscar winner.

Cornish’s boyfriend, actor Ryan Phillippe, is believed to be with her, but he didn’t walk the red carpet on Friday night.

It was a very different story in 2001 when her first feature – low-budget Aussie flick The Monkey’s Mask – was being sold in the market section of the festival. Back then, Cornish paid her own way to Cannes.

“I remember being by myself at the airport, and thinking, ‘wow, the world is a wonderful, amazing place, but I’m going on this six-month journey through the Far East and Africa and Europe, and who knows if I’ll be dead or alive at the end of it’,” she said.

In 2004, she returned to the Riviera, this time as the star of Somersault, which screened in the Un Certain Regard competition. She was earmarked as one of the faces to watch.

Cornish made her acting start on ABC TV series Wildside, for which she won an Australian Film Institute Award in 1999.

She has since begun to make a name for herself in Hollywood with roles in films including Stop-Loss, Elizabeth: The Golden Age and A Good Year.

At the Bright Star premiere she was flanked by co-stars Ben Wishaw and Thomas Sangster.

At a photo call for the film earlier in the day, Cornish was radiant in a sleeveless white dress, by Chloe, with matching open toe heels.

Bright Star, an English period drama, is one of 20 movies vying for the top prize in the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or competition. It depicts the love affair between 19th century poet John Keats (Wishaw) – who died of tuberculosis in 1821 aged 25 – and his young neighbour, Fanny Brawne (Cornish).

“Cornish has the acting skill to match her striking beauty and she makes the small, loving gestures that the British might call soppy both real and touching,” wrote Hollywood Reporter reviewer Ray Bennett.

For Campion, 55, the premiere also marked a return to Cannes.

Campion is the only woman to win the Palme d’Or – for The Piano in 1993 – in the festival’s 62-year history. She used her time in the spotlight to highlight the lack of opportunities for female directors at the top level.

Campion said she admired the passion and dedication Cornish brought to the role of Brawne.

“I so loved what Abbie gave to the character,” she said.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

GALLERY LINKS:
- Events: 2009 Cannes Film Festival – Bright Star Premiere