Abbie Cornish finds her characters through divining the smallest of details. For 2004′s Somersault, her acclaimed breakthrough role, it was a matter of figuring out how Heidi, the haltingly hopeful teenage girl she played, would grasp a schooner of beer. But to play Elizabeth “Bess” Throckmorton, the favoured lady-in-waiting of Cate Blanchett’s Queen Elizabeth I in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, it was a far more difficult process of discovery.

Shekhar Kapur’s vivid melodrama was the first period piece of the 25-year-old’s short but successful career. The prospect made her nervous. Yet production staff were able to supply information, including a portrait of the real lady-in-waiting, where Cornish saw a dancer’s graceful hand and realised how gentle the character was.

The key revelation came in the first week of shooting in England this year.

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Check out a new Elizabeth: The Golden Age article at News.com.au. Here’s the bit on Abbie:

While Elizabeth newcomer Clive Owen adds hunk factor to the film, it is Newcastle farm girl Abbie Cornish who has big-name Hollywood directors talking.

Sultry good looks aside, Kapur says it was the 25-year-old’s Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award-winning performance as a teen runaway in Somersault that drew him to her.

“How could you not find Abbie after seeing Somersault?” Kapur says when asked about discovering her exceptional acting talents.

“I saw Somersault and was so taken that someone at this young age could actually give such an internal, but stirring performance.

“I had been thinking about her since then and I was surprised when she called me and her agent said she would like to do this part, because I heard that every part in Hollywood had been offered to her.”

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Check out this new and very informative article from The Courier-Mail, in which Abbie discusses her current projects and mentions that there’s an Australian film that she hopes to film next year. By the way, she also states that Last Battle Dreamer will start filming “somewhere in Europe – they don’t know yet” in the next few weeks.

She’s the Australian Scarlett Johansson; the next Cate Blanchett or the next Nicole Kidman; an actor tipped to be more popular internationally than Naomi Watts.

Yet 25-year-old Abbie Cornish, back home briefly to join co-stars Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush in launching the Australian release of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, says she’s unfazed by the comparisons.

Despite a cold, she’s on the phone from the venue for the Elizabeth publicity event, the Sydney Theatre Company.

“I take all that stuff as a compliment. They’re all wonderful actresses and to be compared with them . . .” says Cornish, who attracted international film interest with her lead role in Cate Shortland’s 2004′s multiple award-winning drama Somersault.

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She is the willowy Australian actor at the heart of a Hollywood love scandal.

Abbie Cornish has given her strongest indication yet of a full-blown romance with Ryan Phillippe, who separated from his Oscar-winner wife Reese Witherspoon after working with Cornish.

Cornish, 25, who appeared at the Sydney premiere of Elizabeth: The Golden Age last night, has revealed her next film project is a love story starring opposite Phillippe.

“I’m doing Last Battle Dreamer which is a Viking film. It’s about Vikings who pillage and do what Vikings do,” she said. “A love story occurs between an Englishwoman and a Viking.”

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Abbie Cornish smoulders as tinseltown’s hottest new talent. She tells our correspondent how it all came to pass

Take a look at this girl – sexy, isn’t she? Just as well, because you’re going to be seeing a lot more of her. The actress Abbie Cornish is still barely a blip on the big screen – she turned 25 in August and has appeared in only a handful of films – but already, Hollywood insiders are whispering that she could be the most amazing Australian export yet. Yep, that’s ahead of her friends Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts. About to grace our screens as Cate Blanchett’s co-star in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, she is also strongly rumoured to be the next Bond girl in Bond 22, which starts shooting in January.

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