Hollywood’s just crazy about Isla Fisher
ISLA Fisher reckons if there’s a part in Hollywood that calls for an actor to appear slightly unhinged, chances are, she’ll play it.
The Aussie actress was brilliantly psychotic in The Wedding Crashers (where she stole the show from Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn), completely superficial as a spoilt New York consumer in Confessions of a Shopaholic and now, perfectly vacant as Katie, a drug-addicted, alcoholic in the wildly funny Bachelorette.
“It must be my eyes,” giggles Fisher. “I’m good at the crazy.”
The film, directed by Leslye Headland (who adapted her play for the screen), has been touted as something of a Bridesmaids Mark II, although it is infinitely darker and more acidic.
Bachelorette tells the story of a group of high school friends (Fisher, Kirsten Dunst and Lizzy Caplan), aimlessly heading into their 30s, and all hardly overjoyed when asked to be bridesmaids to the overweight girl they used to call “Pig Face” in high school, played by rising Aussie star Rebel Wilson (who Fisher calls “amazing and unique. I just love her”).
Given she spends much of the film acting drunk or stoned, Fisher says she had to plot her “highs and lows”. “You have to work out the drunk-to-stoned variations,” she laughs. “It can get complicated.”
Fisher says Hollywood never seems to tire of mining weddings for endless storylines because we’ve all enjoyed or suffered through them.
“They can be amazing or they can be just absolutely awful, and we’ve all been in those situations,” she says.
Fisher married fellow actor Sacha Baron Cohen (best known as Borat) in 2010 and they have two daughters, Olive, five, and Elula, two. She says her own bachelorette party was tame.
“It was really low-key because I was pregnant at the time. It was relaxed and nice.”
Her mother’s though, was another story.
“I thought it would be kind of fun and silly to take my mum to a strip club with her friends, and I thought it would be funny to put her in a red leather dog collar,” she groans. “But then I left her alone momentarily, and when I got back, she’d been pulled up on stage. “Needless to say, I don’t recommend taking one’s mother into these establishments.”
Of her own marriage, Fisher says she’s been incredibly lucky to have found her soulmate.
“Choosing to be together every day is incredibly romantic,” she says. “I love marriage. I think it’s a wonderful institution and it’s the most important decision you make.
“Life is filled with highs and lows, and you have a best friend to share it with you. It’s amazing.
“It’s like winning the lottery, having a good partner.”
Fisher says Baron Cohen’s support, as well as getting older and motherhood have made her view her career differently. She says she worries less about what parts she should be chasing or what roles she’s missing.
“That’s what’s good about getting a little bit older as an actor as well, you are aware of your limitations, and you’re aware of the things that you’re not going to bring that much to – you think of another actress who could play it better than you,” she says. “That’s always my gut instinct to do or not to do a certain job.”
Indeed, Fisher is something of a rarity in Hollywood.
She says she loves food (“not all women in every day life have toned arms, so I don’t see why my characters should”), and hates shopping (“I hate the mirrors in those stores, they’re unflattering”).
If you want to get Fisher started on something, ask her about the pressure to look good on the red carpet.
“It’s ridiculous. Dressing in Hollywood has become so corporate now, it lacks that individuality of young artists who can’t afford the clothes – they haven’t kind of made it, so they might wear something vintage,” she says. “Nowadays, everyone’s got a stylist, and everyone’s chastised for wearing the wrong nude pant. It’s all so bizarre.
“Even the things I’m wearing today,” she says, gesturing to her dress. “You get to borrow nice things, but all of this has to go back. Even this necklace I’m wearing. I’ll be in my sweatpants tomorrow.”
As she gets up to leave, she mentions she’s off to see her co-star Kirsten Dunst. The pair didn’t know each other well prior to Bachelorette, but Dunst had met Baron Cohen. Sort of.
“We were at the Oscars, and it was the year that Sacha was up for an award for Borat, and Kirsten thought he was a waiter,” Fisher recalls. “He was by himself near the bar, because I was in the bathroom, and she goes up to him and says, ‘Can you get me a glass of champagne?’ Sacha was like: ‘OK’, and he went off to find her one. I haven’t let her live it down.”
Bachelorette opens Thursday.