Tasmanian Born RACHAEL TAYLOR talks about her Career

Who does that? Who rides in a helicopter and lands on the lawn of the Pentagon?

We've all heard of the Tasmanian Devil, but Tasmania isn't known for breeding a hotbed of talent when it comes to actors. Even though the Australian province hasn't churned out Hollywood stars en masse, it appears the town of Launceston has a hometown hottie to export. Rachael Taylor was working on an Australian TV series when she jumped ship and headed for L.A. Somehow, with a lot of luck and the blessing of Michael Bay, Taylor landed a sizeable role in Transformers as Maggie Madsen, a signal decryption expert hell bent on cracking the Transformers' code. With two more movies under her belt since last summer's gargantuan blockbuster, it's safe to say that Rachael Taylor is one of the hottest new actresses on the Hollywood scene. Judging by the 15 minutes that we had with her, she's also one of the coolest.

UGO: Did the Transformers hype reach Australia like it did in the U.S.?
RACHAEL TAYLOR: You know, it did but I wasn't aware of it. I grew up in Tazmania, and I had a different childhood . I'm an only child and I grew up playing make believe in the back yard, so I never really got the Transformers thing. But people are certainly very jealous about it.

UGO: So what did you geek out about as a kid?
RACHAEL: You know, I was an absolute little girl. I was completely girly and I was in the back yard and I had this fairy thing. I was always doing some sort of mystical fairy, far away land thing. I was a bit of a geek, and I would just geek out over Enid Blyton books, like "The Magic Faraway Tree", and stuff like that. Not very exciting.

UGO: Since you went from Australian TV to the biggest movie of the year, how did it all come about for you?
RACHAEL: The truth is that it was just really lucky. I've got one of those stories where you'll go, "Oh man, did you luck out or what?" It was the first movie I auditioned for when I got to the United States. I finished by TV show in Australia and I hid my head shots in the bottom of my luggage, and I came into Los Angeles on a tourist visa. I auditioned for Transformers and Michael [Bay] saw the tape and gave me the job. From then on it was like they got me a visa, my passport stamped, get a job, get a house, get a car, and it's just like my life turned on a dime. I mean, I still go, "What? How did that happen?" I really expected I would waiting tables at this point in my journey to Los Angeles, so I'm incredibly lucky.

UGO: Your character was crucial to the plot, but you didn't get much screen time. Were you ever worried that you'd fall into the territory of being just another "Bay Beauty".
RACHAEL: A Bay girl, yeah. I thought about it, but I think the absolute reality of it is that I just took stock of myself, and said, "You will never be like a Bay girl, but you're just not." I don't know how to be on screen and be sexy. I don't know how to do that. Maybe that's not as interesting as saying, "I've got no interest in doing that." I'm never going to be the girl you'll catch making the attractive face in the movie, because it's just not interesting to me. It's not why I became an actor. To me, I would much rather have limited screen time and actually take my character on a journey that has some sort of gusto to it. It's a small little role, but I think it's a good one. I play an intelligent woman who's after something, and that's interesting to me. A woman that's looking for some sort of truth - in this case, she's trying to find out the mystery of Transformers, and trying to get the Secretary of Defense to listen to her, which he won't do, but that's a really solid journey to me. That doesn't reek of Bay Girl at all. I think it's up to you as an actor to decide what you are in a movie. You make your own bed, I think. If I wanted to show up to work and shorten my skirt and put a bit of extra lip gloss on before a take and pout seductively at Michael Bay, then I could have done that. But you're not going to catch me doing that, because it's just not interesting.

UGO: Were you nervous on set? I mean, you were playing opposite the Secretary of Defense, who, in this case, was Jon Voight.
RACHAEL: He's won an Academy Award, I'm from Tazmania! Yeah, I was really nervous. This was my first movie in the United States, and it was kind of a big one. There were helicopters, robots, Jon Voight, and Michael Bay doing his Michael Bay thing, and it was scary in its own right. But I have to say, Jon Voight is an incredibly supportive and generous man. He's extremely interested in young actors, and he's very nurturing of young actors. I only have nice things to say about him. Michael is a slightly eccentric individual. You could have absolute trust in him, because he's so good at what he does. I think my nerves were somewhat quashed by knowing that I was in very capable hands.

UGO: In what ways did Anthony Andersen help to ease the nerves? Were there any pranks or practical jokes on set?
RACHAEL: Anthony is hilarious. I adore him. He was very kind to me, and he was extremely generous. There's this one thing - Michael Bay hates having food on set, and Anthony would hide hamburgers - In 'n' Out Burgers, actually - around the set, and it would drive him mad. Anthony is, at the same time, extremely professional, which perhaps you wouldn't expect from him because he is so comedically gifted. But thank God for Anthony, he just lightened my load completely.

UGO: Since the DVD brings on another round of press, are you glad to be moving past Transformers after all of the hype?
RACHAEL: That's a really good question. You know, I think it is, but I think I had already put it to bed. I consider it a really nice thing that I can pick up the phone to you and re-hash it and go, "That was that, and that experience was great." The reason why I am an actor is because of the thrill of it. I think I had a good, solid role in this, but I'm capable of a lot more and I want to go explore what those things are. I've shot two movies since Transformers, and I hope that I shoot a lot more, and I'm committed to doing that. I'm committed to stretching myself and I'll probably never do another movie that's as big or widely-watched as Transformers again. I don't know how it would be possible. This was huge, but that's okay with me. I'm looking to stretch myself in different ways, and I know that seems like a passe thing to say as a young artist. I appreciate that I have a lot of dues to pay yet, but I'm prepared to pay them.

UGO: Like living in Tokyo while filming Shutter?
RACHAEL: Yeah, that was quite enduring. But it was wonderful, though.

UGO: How does shooting a massive blockbuster like Transformers compare to a four-month shoot in Tokyo?
RACHAEL: They are extremely different. For that movie in Tokyo, I was in pretty much every scene of the movie. Out of the 62-day shoot, I think I worked 59 days. Whereas on Transformers, it was a smaller role, and I had space to breathe within that. But going to Tokyo, my experience of that was like being sucked into some sort of other world experience. I was so completely absorbed in the character and the story. But Japan was cathartic in its own way. It was a healthy proposition with that movie to get out of L.A. after having done a really big film, and decompress and get back to really telling a story on a much smaller scale. And then, after Tokyo, I went to Napa Valley and shot a movie about wine up there, which was fabulous. You know, Shutter was difficult subject material. It involved the supernatural, and it involves a woman trying to un-pick the man that she's married while making some really difficult and heartbreaking discoveries. It was a difficult movie to shoot, but I'm becoming more aware that maybe you can't actually compare one film that you shoot to another. They are such strange creatures, films. There's such a funny alchemy, making a film, and each one is very specific and really its own world, which is I guess why it's so enjoyable and so fascinating. Each time it's just another job, it's another group of people, and it's a completely new environment.

UGO: What's going on with Bottle Shock?
RACHAEL: It's about an international wine competition that was held in 1976, and this small little America vineyard up in Napa Valley beat all of these very prestigious French wines in blind taste tests. It's about how they came to make this exceptional and award-winning Chardonnay. I play a girl, a young university student, who is very much a free-spirit. She's very open-hearted, and she comes to the vineyard looking to learn about viniculture. It was just a delightful experience. It was just me, Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman, Freddy Rodriguez, Chris Pine, hanging out in Napa Valley, drinking red wine. It was fabulous.

UGO: That's not a bad bunch of guys to drink wine with.
RACHAEL: Yeah, they've been great. I've been very lucky with my leading men until this moment. Josh Jackson was my co-star on Shutter and I love the man to death. Then you look back at Transformers, and Tyrese Gibson is just a gem of a person. I reality adored working with him. He's a very generous man and extremely talented. Shia LaBeouf, who is exceptionally talented himself, and Anthony, Jon, Joshua Jackson and Alan Rickman... I am ridiculously lucky.

UGO: So what was it like to work with Shia and Tyrese?
RACHAEL: Tyrese is the kind of person that would go out of his way to connect with you, because he's just genuinely a nice man. I had enough little pieces with Shia that I got to appreciate him working, and Shia is also a great, friendly, lively person. That was the really nice thing - I look back on the first big American movie that I shot, and I've only got good things to say about every one of the cast members. They were all just lovely to me. You hear these horror stories about how some actors are like problem children, but that was not the case. They were all extremely warm and generous.

UGO: What was the biggest "Oh-my-God" moment for you after landing Transformers?
RACHAEL: It was definitely the riding in the helicopter moments. It was like, "I'm from Tazmania. I have working-class parents. I drive a Chrysler." I have a really simple sort of life, and to be in a helicopter landing on the lawn of the Pentagon, which I think was a shot that didn't make the movie, but there's another scene when Shia, Anthony, Megan and I are in a helicopter. I was just blown away by that. I'm not a particularly cool person and I couldn't hide my excitement. It was ridiculous! Who does that? Who rides in a helicopter and lands on the lawn of the Pentagon?