When Sarah Snook was a little girl in Adelaide, she set herself some pretty daunting standards. “When I graduated from primary to secondary school, they gave out silly awards. I got the Meryl Streep Drama Award, and I was very proud of that. I thought, ‘Maybe one day I’ll be her’. My mum said: ‘Well, Sarah, if you try hard enough you might’.”
So the bar was pretty lofty from the get-go, even if she wasn’t overly familiar with the Oscar winner’s body of work. “I just knew her name was synonymous with greatness and thought, ‘Yeah, that’d be good’.”
I’ve met Snook at a city hotel on her short break from filming the miniseries The Secret River in country Victoria (Lakes Entrance and Werribee Mansion in recent weeks). Set in convict settlement days and based on the Kate Grenville novel, the series co-stars Lachy Hulme and Tim Minchin and will screen on the ABC next year.
With her red hair and alabaster complexion, Snook is an ethereal presence, an impression augmented by her quiet voice and understated manner.
We have met to talk about her biggest role yet, in the new film Predestination, in which she stars with American actor Ethan Hawke and Australian Noah Taylor. The film, a sci-fi thriller about time travel, is based on a short story called All You Zombies written reportedly in one day by American sci-fi writer Robert A. Heinlein. Predestination was shot in Melbourne and premiered in July at the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Snook’s character is a woman and a man, a role that required long and complex make-up application and prosthetics. “It was three hours every morning,” she says.
“We did the chin and a slightly different nose, lowered my ears, which was weird.”
She spent many of these hours talking to the make-up artists. “I bought The Count of Monte Cristo and Oscar Wilde short stories on tape – all these audio books – and I didn’t listen to a single one.”
Working with actor, director and novelist Ethan Hawke was, she says, a great experience. “He’s a really energetic person with a personality that is generous and lends itself to being the centre of a really big project, and able to carry that project,” she says. “He understands about being the leading man. He has a really strong passion for storytelling, something I really hope to foster in my choices.”
The film is getting Snook noticed internationally. Showbiz bible Variety trumpeted “an extraordinary breakout performance from Aussie newcomer Sarah Snook”. And on a film website she is described as “the next Nicole Kidman” (the red hair?).
Snook, 26, grew up in Adelaide, the youngest of three sisters. “I was into acting, doing as kids do, making up plays when my parents had their friends over for dinner and making them sit through the after-dinner entertainment. We made up Red Riding Hood. I was eight or nine. I remember tipping an old wooden table up on its end and that became the tree that the wolf came up behind, and the wolf had feathers for a mask. Just being creative.”
Her favourite film was the Disney animated version of Aladdin. “I really loved the genie. I loved Robin Williams’ voice. That inspired my imagination because I could dive into different worlds. Totally loved that.
“I did watch a lot of Pretty Woman as a kid and I didn’t realise until I was an adult that things I was quoting from it weren’t really appropriate for a seven- or eight-year-old to be quoting. I didn’t know who (the character) was. I thought it was the Cinderella story – didn’t know what the twist was.”
Snook’s parents separated when she was 11. “I was pretty young and I didn’t understand it, so you look back as an adult and have a different perspective on things,” she says.
I ask if the challenges of the break-up have proven useful for the creative process in her acting. “Useful in the sense that you have to develop a strong sense of perspective, that one person’s perspective is not the same as another person’s,’’ she says.
As a teenager, she wondered about a career in acting. “I didn’t really think I could do it as a job. I didn’t think [anyone] could do it as a job. It seemed something that people did as a hobby … until my dad said, ‘Do you want to do this as a hobby or a career?’. I was very indignant and said, ‘I want to do this as a career’. And my own pride made me say, ‘OK, I’ve got to do this now’.”
Did her father give her the usual line about acting being 90 per cent unemployment? “Oh yeah, all the time,” she smiles. “If you’re going to go into acting or any of the creative arts in Australia, you’re taught to always have a plan B.”
Snook’s plan B was to teach English. “Which I still might do. Depends on how things work out.”
She was accepted into the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney and started there aged 18. She settled in well to what was a structured learning environment.
“I think that kind of helped me in a way because I was used to being inside an institutionalised type of environment, being told that you have to be here at nine in the morning or else you don’t get to participate in the class. For me that was not unusual,’’ she says.
After graduating in 2008, Snook has had several television roles (All Saints, Packed to the Rafters and the ABC’s Redfern Now, series two).
“Just little guest roles here and there, but I’m very lucky to be part of shows that are inherently Australian.”
She starred in the ABC drama Sisters of War, for which she won the 2012 AACTA Award for best lead actress in a television drama.
She also appeared in several films including the Australian drama Sleeping Beauty (2011) and the Australian romantic comedy Not Suitable for Children (2012).
Now Snook’s visibility is set to rocket with several film releases at once. She appeared in the recently released and well-reviewed apocalyptic drama These Final Hours.
“A friend coined my character as a creepy mermaid,” she says.
“It’s pretty accurate. I play a reveller who’s at a party to end the world and decides to take it upon herself to give this nine-year-old girl, who she believes is her own child, the better end to the world than she would get if she were to live any longer.”
There’s also the horror flick Jessabelle, set in America’s South, to be released this year, in which Snook plays a woman returning to her childhood home in Louisiana to recuperate from a horrific car accident.
Does she get a sense that she is about to break out as a star? “I’m working a lot more than I have before,” she says. “This year I’ve spent more of the year working than not working and I haven’t done that before. I feel there’s a certain momentum that might be happening. Last year I worked a small percentage of the 52 weeks but from an outside perspective it looks like I’ve been working quite a lot. It’s two years of work all coming out at the same time.”
Her mother Debbie works in elderly care. “She looks after patients who don’t want to go into a home; she helps them out. It can be pretty demanding work,’’ Snook says. “She’s a very patient woman, very giving of her time and generous. It really suits her soul and personality, giving of herself.”
Her father Ian lives in Perth and sells swimming pools. “It’s good. They want pools over there. Lots more money and lots of sun, so it’s a good place to be.”
Did her father ever admit he was wrong about the perils of an acting career? “Oh yeah,” she laughs. “He’s eaten his words long ago. He said he saw a billboard for These Final Hours on the road and was very excited.”
Snook is living out of a suitcase with “stuff in storage in Sydney”. Her plans are fluid. “I don’t know what September holds, but whatever September holds is where I’ll go next.
“From the date The Secret River finishes I have no tether to anywhere, no accommodation anymore. It’s good. It’s my partner and I and our suitcases, so we’ll go wherever we want to go, which is kind of nice. It’s the time to do it, when you’re in your 20s. I’m sure there’s an expiry date on that kind of lifestyle.”
She loves travelling. “That’s one of my favourite things. I’ve been a lot across the States, not just California but Louisiana, up the east coast, Texas, Utah, Canada, Mexico. I’d like to go to more south-east Asian countries.”
Snook hopes acting can be a passport to seeing more of the world.
“The acting jobs kind of feed my travel bug.”
Does she look at scripts and see where they’re set? “Yep.” (Big laugh). You read a script and it’s set in Ireland and you go, ‘I would love to go to Ireland; I’ll try really hard at this audition’.”
Her current level of fame suits her, and she reflects on how being well-known could affect her craft. Is she recognised? “No. I like catching public transport, so…
“That [fame] kind of terrifies me a bit, particularly if the idea is to be an actor and tell stories about real life or even imagined life. It kind of starts with people, and if you can’t interact with people then where do you begin from? If there’s a mask or a fame thing that stops other people talking to you as a normal person, [that’s a problem].”
And there’s a sense of public ownership when fame hits. “You’ve got to protect that little flame inside you that’s yours and, if you don’t, you don’t have anything to give those special people in your life, if everyone has it.”
What are her dreams? “More travel, more roles, more life, more love. Things that feed the soul.”
Part of her research for roles is to go to the movies. “One of my favourite things to do when I’m shooting something is go and see a film at the cinema … when you see a film at the cinema you go, ‘Oh, that’s how much they’re seeing’. You get the perspective – that’s how you pull a story together, that’s how you bring in music, that’s how you edit.”
Snook is at the start of what could be a stellar career. From horror to rom-com to historical pieces, even playing a man, she is crafting a reputation as a genre-hopper, which leads me to ask about the similarly versatile Meryl Streep, the actor she wanted to be when she was a little girl.
“I think she’s great, very inspirational, particularly for female [actors], because she brings a lot of strength and, at the same time, vulnerabilities to her characters.”
The little girl’s dream is gaining momentum.
» Predestination (MA15+) was released on August 28.
