As career moves go, it’s rare that a cancelled soap opera screened over summer provides a lucrative leg-up. But for local blonde bombshell RACHAEL TAYLOR, her current rise through the US film industry is built on Seven’s failed Home and Away spin-off, Headland.
While most of her soapie colleagues retreated behind coffee machines awaiting their next acting adventure, RACHAEL TAYLOR was snapped up by Hollywood’s insatiable appetite for talented, fresh faces - especially those who could double as a model.
She landed a part in Michael Bay’s blockbuster, Transformers, a critically panned extension of the ’80s cartoon, and followed it up with sexy romp The Tourist, opposite Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams.
Again the film was mostly forgettable, but it was another strong vehicle for RACHAEL TAYLOR to further her stateside career. Women’s magazines began to take notice, shooting the glamorous youngster for several spreads - under taglines such as “Australia’s next big thing” and “The 10 fresh faces of Hollywood”.
It may be a long way from the small-town sensibilities of Launceston, Tasmania, where she grew up, but it’s apparent RACHAEL TAYLOR is making a name for herself in Tinseltown. That said, during a recent interview, RACHAEL TAYLOR professed her continued love for the Apple Isle, where her parents remain and to where she escapes when not filming.
“You know, I go off and then I come home to the house I was born in and we sort of talk about the dog,” she said. “(My parents) genuinely really like their life in Tassie. They have this simple thing going on.
“I’m sure they’d love to come and visit me at some stage, but at the moment it just sort of seems like daughter’s off doing this kind of mystical thing out in the universe somewhere and it sort of involves movie-making.”
In May, RACHAEL TAYLOR returns to the horror genre - a class of film she’s familiar with, having completed gruesome local flick Man-Thing in 2005 - starring opposite Joshua Jackson in Shutter.
RACHAEL TAYLOR admits to a few initial issues given that Shutter is a US remake of the solid Thai film of the same name. “I think the reason the Western market has tapped into the Asian horror films is that they’re so good,” she says, thankfully maintaining her Australian accent. “I think when a movie’s good, it’s like trying to remake apainting. “I was hesitant about taking another crack at it because you don’t want to offend the fans of the genre.” Shutter explores the lives of two newlyweds (RACHAEL TAYLOR and Jackson) who discover their honeymoon photos also feature some ghostly images.
Although many actors bemoan Hollywood’s current obsession with special effects and working with green screens, RACHAEL TAYLOR admits she enjoys the process. The 23-year-old compares the process of making a movie where creatures, robots or ghosts are added long after her input is completed, to childhood imagination. “It’s like going back to that time when you were eight years old and you’re pretending about monsters and fairies,” RACHAEL TAYLOR says.
But the hardest part of making Shutter had nothing to do with special effects. It was the real world that kept throwing her for a loop. The movie was shot in Japan and RACHAEL TAYLOR kept having what she called “lost in translation moments”. She found herself feeling isolated and detached from the world because of the language barriers. “I actually felt like a ghost in Tokyo,” RACHAEL TAYLOR says. “The journey my character goes on in the film is a lot like that. She has to figure out what’s real and what’s not.”
As, we’re sure, does Taylor as she navigates life in Hollywood’s fish bowl.
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