• "All the films have been my own decision. You know straight away if something isn't right for you. You have the films where you're like, 'Oh my gosh, I have to do that film'. And then there's the 'maybe' group. But what I've come to realise with the maybe group, if there's any doubt keeping it from being a complete passion."

• "When I finish a film, I find that travel scares and intrigues me. It makes me feel selfless and nonjudgmental. When you are making a movie, it's hard to feel either of those things."

• "I've been choosy about everything since I can remember. I was born picky. I have never just done something to do it — I've always been particular. At 17, I realized that film was like a cave within a cave, a kind of secret world where I could invest all my creativity. When they're good, movies can create a lasting universe and they are a communal experience."

• "The 'tall poppy syndrome'. They don't like it in Australia when one poppy stands taller than the others. If you become successful, they assume you are a taller poppy. When I won awards for Somersault, there was probably some talk about the tall poppies, but I intentionally move around a lot and I didn't pay attention. I don't stay in one place for long — even now I don't have an apartment. I just have a storage space in Melbourne and a suitcase. I'll stay with family and friends, or in hotels and sublets for a while, and I go in and out of my storage space and swap clothes or just buy new stuff. I still haven't figured out the perfect way to live in one place."

• On the rumors about her fling with Ryan Phillippe:
"That was scary. I kept thinking, 'Don't pay attention to what they write'. This is not why I do this job. The fear is that there are so many things that you cannot control. With the media now, and especially the internet, there is not much you can do. It's all been crazy in the last five years. Let's just say I try to avoid a lot of internet culture. I don't look myself up. Although I do find it strange that the internet and the tabloids express dislike and judge without having access to the truth. They say and do anything about anyone, and it only generates hate."

• "I am good at distancing myself. I just get away, get on a plane, disappear from even myself. When I act, I become someone else. And when I travel, I lose myself. It's an interesting way to live."

• "I have always loved animals, felt a strong connection to all living things."

• "I've been a vegetarian since I was 13. I've always had a super soft spot for animals. I was always rearing baby cows and hatching eggs under a light bulb."

• "I like doing my own hair and make-up because it's me. This is my own dress, it's me, and I'm happy with it. It's nice not to be too full-on."

• "I think as a child you know when it's time for your parents to split. You realise they love each other, but they're not in love with each other. And I think as a child it's much better for your parents to split than for them to stay and have dysfunction within the family."

• "Moving out was quite easy, to tell you the truth. I was 16 so I was fearless, I didn't worry about anything. If I didn't have money, I just wouldn't eat. If I didn't have money for three days, I just wouldn't eat. By the third day maybe I'd scram some change and get some money for a laksa and that would do me for two days."

• "If you're going to be an actor, you almost need fame in order to keep being an actor. If you're in demand by people and fans, which makes you famous, then that's what keeps you going because people want to see your movies. So I think they go hand in hand."

• "I never felt like I was an actor or anything. It was like I had this lucky part of my life, but I never thought, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And I feel like I'm still going. All the little bits in between... are a waiting period for me, where I'm making the money to be able to travel again."

• "Whenever I am acting, it's everything, you know. If I'm researching a role, I'm completely consumed in that and, between action and cut, I live in this suspended time. It's a really amazing experience and the only other thing I get it from is music."

• "The other music I make is more experimental for me; it's not one genre in particular, just whatever I feel like," she says. "Sometimes with the electronic stuff it's beats, sometimes I use a computer, also to record. I'm portable. I carry a laptop, and a little recording studio on my back."

• "I've met people who don't come out of the shower naked but I run around everywhere naked; I love it, I think it's great."

• "You know, it doesn't feel like things are happening super fast. There's a bit of a spotlight, obviously. There's more scripts to read, more interviews and photographs. But I just live my own life."

• "I'm pretty good at dying. You only live once so if you can represent someone's life and death I think that's amazing."

• "Some scripts aren't crap, but they don't do anything for you. You don't understand why they're being made. I'm lucky there are films like Somersault and Candy around that allow me to get my hands dirty."

• "Making a movie is, for me, like painting. I just enjoy the care that goes into every brushstroke and the choice of every color. I enjoy the intensity of it."

• On growing up in Lochinvar:
"I remember so much beauty. I'd lie on the trampoline with my brothers and look at the stars all night."

• "I was about 10 when I started taking photos. I used to get my little brothers and sister and set them up in shots. I used to think I was a photographer with my own studio and stuff. I also had art supplies coming out of my ears. That's what I'd get for Christmas and birthdays."

• "I've got heaps of dreams. I'd like to keep travelling. I'd love to make more music and make good movies."

• "I don't think blockbuster movies really appeal to me. The thing is, I'm still that person from the farm."

• "I think I was born to just let everything out, you know what I mean, born to create. Ever since I was a kid I always had my fingers covered in paint, and every birthday and Christmas I would get inundated with art supplies. I'd steal mum's camera and take photographs ...I was always creating and building. I'd build rafts and swim in the local dam, build mud-cakes and cubby houses and run around playing commandos."

• On painting:
"I do abstract impressions on canvas, lots of colour and texture... Like Basquiat." [Basquiat is her favorite artist]

• "Her eyes are catlike, mesmerising, dangerous and hypnotic." - Jane Campion (Bright Star director)

• "She has real drive, real history, independence, energy and will. She's managed to protect that and not to have it watered down by her emerging fame and talent... By wanting to fit into the system too much." - Kimberly Pierce (Stop-Loss director)

• "Abbie's one of those rare actors who doesn't need words to carry a scene. She'll fill up space that wasn't written in. She opens her eyes and looks into the camera and you just look back." - Kimberly Pierce (Stop-Loss director)

• "Well, as a person she's incredibly down to earth. You know, what you see is what you get. There's just absolutely no bullshit, so I really admired that. And as an actress, she's incredibly explosive and instinctual to a tee. She refuses to do anything else but run off her instincts, and she has very good instincts as an actor, so I think she makes for a very good leading lady."
- Heath Ledger (Candy co-star)

• "Abbie has an incredible determination. She has an uncanny sense of her own strengths. There were things she felt very strongly about and we would fight about some things in a creative way."
- Neil Armfield (Candy director)

• "It's incredible how true she is. There's such a control of how she releases a character arc through the camera."
- Neil Armfield (Candy director)

• "Abbie is going to be a huge star. She has every component you need to to achieve that: beauty, talent, ambition and a respect for the medium."
- Margaret Fink (Candy producer)

• "She's like someone like Claudia Karvan in terms of the preparation of the role. When she comes into rehearsal she is incredibly prepared, which means that she can play. She's not freaking out because she doesn't know the lines."
- Cate Shortland (Somersault director)

• "Chemistry is really elusive. We all know what it is when you see an actor on screen and you're sitting in the darkness and you feel this amazing pull. When you see someone across the room and look into their eyes and your stomach constricts. She has that."
- Cate Shortland (Somersault director)

• "I think she is one of the most intuitive young actors I've ever worked with. And I've worked with a lot of young actors over my years of theatre and training actors. She's very instinctive. There's no ego about her and she loves the craft of acting. She's one of these actors that feels something so deeply and intuitively that she almost morphs herself into the character."
- Paul Currie (One Perfect Day director)

• "In my mind, she's verging on stardom now. She's got the acting chops, she's got the looks, the presence and the X-factor."
- Ann Robinson (Agent)

• "She was a tall, striking girl and we saw something in her even back then,. I tried to use her in a lot of productions after that."
- Peter Andrikidis (Wildside director)