A Lonely Place to Die (2011)
The Slap (2011)
Bag of Bones (2011)
Edge of Twilight (2011)
The Stolen (2011)
Opened: March 2004 LIFE has certainly got rosier for actress Melissa George since she has packed her bags and said her goodbyes to Summer Bay.
It’s been more than 13 years since the former Home And Away star swapped her native Australian shores for the bright lights of Los Angeles, like fellow soap actors Isla Fisher and Guy Pearce.
Since then, the 33-year-old has won a Golden Globe nomination and become a respected member of the Hollywood community, winning roles in Friends and Grey’s Anatomy among others.
Melissa counts the Best Supporting Actress nomination by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association earlier this year, for her role in award-winning drama In Treatment, as her proudest achievement to date – even though she walked away empty-handed.
She got the news four hours after she did her last scenes on hospital drama Grey’s Anatomy.
“It was the last thing I thought would ever happen – almost like a joke really. I didn’t even know I was up for one,” she admits, with a smile, as we meet in a luxurious hotel suite in London.
Flicking her blonde hair, she continues: “It’s just nice to hear from people you admire, like Shirley MacLaine and Al Pacino saying, ‘I’ve watched In Treatment over and over again’. Al Gore and former President Bill Clinton too.
“I don’t think for a career it really means much, except you’re getting accolades from people and maybe you’ll work with better directors and get better quality work, but to me it means more than anything – more than what it brings, it means all that hard work was recognised.”
Melissa certainly had her pick of the plummest parts, and has worked with heart-throbs like Josh Hartnett, Clive Owen and Michael Sheen, yet the actress turned her back on big-budget productions for her next project – choosing Triangle which doesn’t star any A-listers.
“It’s a very cerebral psychological drama about a woman called Jess who you think is a woman who boarded a boat and then an ocean liner, who starts to have cases of deja vu,” she explains.
“Throughout the course of the film, more Jesses appear but it could be a case of Groundhog Day, or a case of amnesia. What I love about it is you think you’re watching a certain type of film and then 20 minutes in, it’s not.”
Shooting the nail-biting thriller took its toll on Melissa, who cried all day to make her eyes blood-shot and tired.
“I wanted to make my eyes look really demented, like she’s been living for like 200 years without sleeping and I think I achieved that,” she recalls. “I was sitting in that film thinking I haven’t seen an actress doing a part like that or had that much screen time in a long time, so it was great to do that kind of film.”
Having starred in fright films like 30 Days Of Night, The Amityville Horror and Turistas, Melissa now prefers to distance herself from the horror tag.
“Over the course of a career, I think you will double up on many genres from drama to thriller to whatever.
I like them all. My TV work from In Treatment was definitely a drama, not a thriller, and Grey’s Anatomy was fun, so I like to break it up.”
Work aside, Melissa has been happily married to Chilean film director Claudio Dabed, whom she met in Bali, for more than nine years, and is stepmother to his 15-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. The family split their time between Los Angeles, NewYork and Buenos Aires.
She admits that motherhood has yet to knock on her door.
“I am still young but I’ve got to have kids soon, big time. I am renovating my apartment in New York right now and I really want to raise my children in Manhattan and Buenos Aires so I am thinking that I am going to get pregnant next year,” she hints.
Her dream is to do a period piece, and act under the direction of acclaimed film-makers Pedro Almodovar and Woody Allen. Despite admitting to being fiercely ambitious, Melissa stays grounded.
“I never show it, never,” she says. “I have these lists that I write at night: what to achieve the next day, and it has to be done.
“And at Christmas, before New Year’s Eve, I write what I want to achieve the next year and then I put it in an envelope and don’t open it until the following year.
Then I look at what I have done. Have I done what I said? I first did that two years ago and now it’s my ritual.”