13 July

Feature: Elizabeth Debicki for Net-A-Porter

“Iam wearing pajamas from the waist down,” admits Elizabeth Debicki, as we meet via video call for her PORTER interview. The Australian actor has been quarantining in Los Angeles since March and, after the initial “shock to the system”, she has “surrendered” to life in lockdown. “I haven’t baked any bread or read Tolstoy… I watched Normal People and Googled ‘how to make a spicy margarita’,” she says.

Despite suffering from a self-diagnosed case of ‘Zoom fatigue’, Debicki is still dismayed that she turned down social invitations before daily life became unrecognizable. “I can’t be the only one thinking: why the f*** didn’t I go to that dinner two weeks ago?”

After seven years of working non-stop, she concedes that “being forced to pause has been confronting”. It’s actually London that Debicki calls home, a place she feels is far-removed from LA and Hollywood; where she can hang out with friends, go to the theater and just generally “re-engage with the fabric of normality”. (However, over the last few years, as her career has kicked into overdrive, she has been splitting her time fifty-fifty between the two cities.)

Back in March, when it became clear that the global pandemic meant cities across the world were shutting down and international travel was grinding to a halt, Debicki made the decision to stay in the United States, recognizing that the London she loved would be off-limits for the foreseeable future. She’s reluctant to use the word “gratitude”, fearful that it could ring hollow, but acknowledges that, so far, this year has been all about “taking stock” and, ultimately, her outlook is positive: “I wake up every day and think: my needs are being met and my family is safe – how incredibly lucky, am I?’”

Debicki should be on the campaign trail right now, promoting Tenet, the latest release from celebrated British auteur Christopher Nolan. The secrecy that surrounds Nolan’s projects – which have included box office sensations Interstellar, Inception and Dunkirk – is legendary, and Debicki is not at liberty to discuss specifics. Asked whether this shroud of mystery adds to the sense that you’re creating something special on set, her answer is suitably enigmatic: “The extremity of the commitment and the focus – it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.” Debicki’s own experience of filming sounds both personally and professionally formative. “Working with someone like Chris, it’s a golden ticket,” she adds, mercifully. “You know it’s going to be super challenging and you know there are going to be lessons for you. Sometimes you uncover them gently and sometimes they come and bite you on the ass – for me, it was a combination of both.”

She may have a self-deprecating sense of humor, but Debicki’s back catalogue is a testament not only to her talent, but also her seemingly endless range. In the last five years alone, she’s played an escort in Steve McQueen’s Widows (2018), an alien priestess in Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2 (2017), an arms dealer’s mistress in The Night Manager (2016) and the femme fatale – albeit with a twist – in Guy Ritchie’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015). Although roles come at the mercy of directors, Debicki has been able to regain some agency in the process. “As an actor, your career is more defined by the things you say no to rather than the things you accept – you can carve your own path.” [More at Source]

12 July

Feature: Elizabeth Debicki for The Observer

To have everybody on the planet in their own homes, not able to see their friends, and collectively yearning for something – I think it’s very interesting for our species,” says the Australian actor Elizabeth Debicki, who is speaking to me in a slow, low voice over the phone from her house in Los Angeles. She has something of an other-worldly manner, part of what makes her so compelling on screen, and says she is in the garden, where she has “never spent so much time staring at lavender plants before. Brain restructuring itself.”

It is the early part of lockdown, before America’s cases of coronavirus start making it the worst-hit country in the world, and we were supposed to be meeting in the flesh to discuss her new film, Tenet, the much-hyped thriller from Christopher Nolan, who made Dunkirk, Interstellar and various Batmans, and which also stars Robert Pattinson, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh. But it has been held back until August, when we might be able to watch the 3D World War Three spy thriller in cinemas.

Wild as the project sounds, the experience of shooting it was an unexpected kind of preparation for the isolation of lockdown, explains Debicki, because much of her time was spent “living in an apartment in Estonia for months, a hotel in Bulgaria, not seeing anyone from my real life. So maybe, in a funny way, I’ve been a little bit in training for this for a while. I’ve spoken to a few actor friends of mine about this – perhaps we already have coping mechanisms for being away from our lives.”

Debicki’s previous film roles include Ayesha in the Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 (she will return for the third instalment); the hilariously forbidding villain in Guy Ritchie’s The Man from UNCLE; and playing Virginia Woolf in Vita and Virginia, but as for her part in Tenet, “It’s really tricky, I sort of can’t… I can’t really tell you anything about it,” she says. “I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t, and I’m sworn to secrecy.”

She can, however, discuss the brilliant BBC drama series The Night Manager, based on the John le Carré novel, in which she co-starred, in 2016. It still comes back to me in flashes: Hugh Laurie playing an arms dealer and Debicki his girlfriend, Jed. (At 6ft 3in, she is taller than him, which only added to their beguiling power dynamic.) I tell her it had me on the edge of my seat for six weeks. She agrees that it was “a good TV show, I’m very proud of that. Also, it delivered me Hugh Laurie, which… What a gem. What a treasure of a friend!”

Yet the real treasure from that production, as well as seeing Laurie play a tricksy bastard and Tom Hiddleston crisply outwit him in turn, is what Debicki did with her part. What seemed, on paper, like a rather typically thinly sketched female character (young, blonde, a few lines and fewer clothes) became something altogether more powerful in her performance. I could not take my eyes off her eyes: where were they looking, what did they see? What did she know, and what was she trying not to know? Apparently I wasn’t alone in this – a certain Mr Le Carré had to hand it to her after watching the series that she had created a better character than he had. [More at Source]

10 July

Feature: Elizabeth Debicki for Variety

Elizabeth Debicki can keep a secret.

Maybe it comes from her stint in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where she made a memorable appearance as a gold-painted alien in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.” Or from dabbling in the world of espionage in AMC’s adaptation of John le Carré’s spy thriller “The Night Manager.” Maybe it’s her elegant appearance, which might be why she is frequently cast as cool and aloof figures, something that started with her breakthrough roles as the alluring but deceptive Jordan Baker in “The Great Gatsby” and a stylish villain in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” But to hear the Australian actor tell it, convincing the world she’s an enigma is her greatest performance yet. “One time, Isabella Rossellini said I was mysterious, and it basically made my life because I’ve always wanted to be mysterious!” Debicki says with a laugh. “The truth is, I can’t keep up that act for more than four seconds. As soon as I get to know somebody, that narrative goes away pretty quickly.”
There’s an Australian word — “dagginess” — which Debicki says roughly translates to dorkiness. “Yeah, I’m a big dag,” she admits. “I always have been. I was that kid in school who would always write 500 words more than the assignment required.”

Debicki is calling from Los Angeles, where she’s been quarantining, and quickly proves her dag credentials by geeking out about her lockdown entertainment diet. She just watched Judd Apatow’s “The King of Staten Island,” which she adored. She’s also a huge fan of Trevor Noah, particularly how he’s been handling the coverage of the current protests with intelligence and humor. Asked if she’s been approached to do a comedy, she says, “People don’t approach me — remember the aloof thing?” she jokes. “Even before Fauci, it was always ‘Six feet away from Debicki!’ It’s too bad because I do love smart, fun comedy.”

“Oh, she’s got a great sense of humor,” concurs director Susanne Bier, who cast her in “The Night Manager,” where she says that off-screen, Debicki held her own in a battle of wits with Hugh Laurie. “She’s very good at diffusing her own elegance. It was funny to watch her wearing some gorgeous gown and then realize she left something in her trailer so she’d throw on running shoes and go racing off, still in this beautiful dress.”

Today, Debicki has a unique responsibility suited to her secrecy and befitting that mysterious persona: She is supposed to talk about her new film “Tenet,” without revealing much of anything. Originally slated to open July 14, the film has been pushed back twice due to the coronavirus and is now set to bow on Aug. 12. Because director Christopher Nolan commands his cast and crew to stay tight-lipped about his movies, it’s impossible to guess what’s in store. What has been gleaned from the trailer and early buzz is that “Tenet” features many of his trademarks: an impressive ensemble (in addition to Debicki, there’s John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Michael Caine and Kenneth Branagh), big-budget spectacle, monochromatic suits and a sci-fi storyline having to do with … manipulating time, we think? The trailer features Washington learning how time can be inverted, with bullets appearing to load back into a gun after being fired. [More at Source]

19 June

Feature: Tenet for Entertainment Weekly

Elizabeth and the cast of Tenet are on the upcoming July cover of Entertainment Weekly! Elizabeth looks amazing in the sneak peek we got about her character in the interview.


 

This is a mere sliver of what the movie is going to be,” Tenet producer Emma Thomas tells EW in the sweltering California desert this past October. If this is a sliver, writer-director Christopher Nolan’s latest film is going to be a doozy: On an expanse of dusty, sun-blasted terrain approximately 80 miles east of Palm Springs, an abandoned city of destroyed buildings and rubble has been constructed from scratch, a vast set populated by hundreds of extras in military camouflage uniforms. As the day progresses, and the temperature climbs, two of the film’s stars, John David Washington and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, repeatedly sprint down the road bifurcating the cityscape. Robert Pattinson, driving an armored military vehicle, is in hot pursuit; he’s followed by another truck holding both an IMAX camera and Nolan. The whole shebang is pretty much the most impressive Hollywood-financed flex you could hope to see. Even Nolan, 49, who has plenty of experience directing outsize movies — Interstellar, Inception, and the Christian Bale-starring Dark Knight trilogy — seems impressed. “The set would certainly rank as one of the largest-scale outdoor builds of all time,” he says. “It’s colossal.”

It is something of a surprise that EW has been invited to witness the proceedings today, given the secrecy surrounding the Warner Bros. film. When the news of Nolan’s new project starring Washington, Pattinson, and Taylor-Johnson broke in May 2019, the studio described the movie, with deliberate vagueness, as “an action epic evolving from the world of international espionage.” Today, Thomas remains extremely tight-lipped about the project, whose cast also includes Elizabeth Debicki, Clémence Poésy, Himesh Patel, Nolan regular Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh, who appeared in the director’s previous film Dunkirk. The producer politely declines to answer even the most basic of questions, such as what country are we supposed to be in now? “I know people think we’re secretive, and we’re generally not,” says Thomas, who is married to Nolan and has produced all his movies. “On this one there’s a little bit more…” Thomas pauses, then changes tack. “All will become clear!”

This air of mystery, combined with Nolan’s reputation as a creator of original blockbusters admired by audiences and critics alike, made Tenet one of 2020’s must-see releases the second it was announced. But in the months since EW’s set visit, the film has come to represent much more, as the coronavirus pandemic forced cinemas to close and almost every film scheduled for release prior to Tenet’s initial July 17 arrival to be postponed. While other summer movies were eventually pushed back or dispatched to streaming services, Tenet held firm. Warner Bros. and Nolan did eventually delay the film’s release, but only by two weeks, announcing on June 12 that the film will now come out July 31, a week after Mulan. Should those two movies prove successful, it will trigger the resumption of a normal — or normal-ish — summer movie season. “[Tenet is] kind of a unicorn of a movie anyway, because it’s not based on an IP thing,” says Pattinson. “But after all this — hopefully it will be a ridiculously overwhelming experience.” [More at Source]

12 June

Feature: Elizabeth Debicki for The Los Angeles Time

“You know those days when you feel like, ‘I’m really together’?” actress Elizabeth Debicki asked on the phone late last month. “And you’re like, ‘I’ve got this and I’m super-energized and I’m functioning on so many levels.’ And then you meet Mick Jagger and you’re like, ‘What have I ever done with my life?’ ”

It’s not an anecdote that the average person can relate to. However, Debicki isn’t most people. The 6-foot-3 ballerina-turned-actress recently worked with the Rolling Stones frontman on a film. Next she’ll appear in director Christopher Nolan’s new top-secret project.

“It’s a little bit strange — the life of an actor,” Debicki said. “You put your head down and you work, and when you’re not working, you’re still submerged under this tide of [insecurity]. In the early part of your career, it’s predominantly panic. I’d worry, ‘Where is the next thing coming from?’ ”

With a resume like Debicki’s, it’s surprising to hear that the 28-year-old actress still has career anxiety. “I think I’m getting better at taking my head out of that,” she said.

Having made her mark in Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” in 2013, Debicki went on to appear in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “Everest” in 2015; “The Night Manager” in 2016; “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” in 2017; “The Cloverfield Paradox” and Steve McQueen’s “Widows” with Oscar winner Viola Davis last year. The latter project is what caught the attention of Italian label Max Mara, who will honor Debicki with the Women in Film Max Mara Face of the Future award during Women in Film’s gala on Wednesday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Amy Baer, Women in Film’s L.A. board president, said the nonprofit organization, which advocates for women in the screen industries to achieve parity, is in full support of Max Mara’s choice.

“Elizabeth is an extraordinary talent who is blowing up,” Baer said. “She marches to the beat of her own drum, which is a modern approach to an entertainment career for an actress. She takes roles that she likes and she takes roles that speak to her as opposed to a traditional, ‘I should go do this commercial movie and I should do that commercial movie.’ ”

Maria Giulia Maramotti, Max Mara’s global brand ambassador and the brand’s vice president of U.S. retail, added, “We chose Elizabeth because she is comfortable in her own skin and is confident in her choices both personally and professionally. She is a strong woman with her own style and opinions and is someone that our clients can relate to.” [More at Source]