Teresa Palmer speaks her #MeToo truth
Back in 2006, Australian actor Teresa Palmer landed her first big Hollywood break. Now, she opens up about the traumatic experience she endured on the set of the US blockbuster.
Stellar
Don't miss out on the headlines from Stellar. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Teresa Palmer was intimidated by the prospect of stepping into Michelle Payne’s stirrups — until, that is, she met the Melbourne Cup-winning jockey.
Despite the very different worlds they inhabit — one a glamorous actor who calls Hollywood home, the other a Ballarat-based jockey — they hit it off immediately.
“We couldn’t stop talking; we chewed each other’s ears off,” Palmer tells Stellar.
“As soon I sat down with Michelle, my reservations went out the window, because she is so open and brave and inspiring.”
The 33-year-old is speaking on the phone from her home in LA, which is situated beneath the iconic Hollywood sign.
It’s a far cry from the day yards at Ballarat, where Payne’s training operation is located. But for all their differences, both the jockey, whose mother died in a car crash when she was six months old, and Palmer, whose mother struggled with serious mental health issues while the actor was growing up, were forced to be independent from a very young age.
“[Michelle] was raised by her father and her [nine] brothers and sisters, but she didn’t have that maternal figure,” says Palmer.
“Mum was a huge part of my life, but I definitely had to step into being more of an adult at quite a young age, and I know Michelle had that experience, too.”
That early self-reliance might well have been a factor in their ability, as young women, to resist any pressure to conform.
“It’s probably one of the reasons why I just decided to do my own thing,’’ admits Palmer, who moved to Los Angeles as a teenager after her breakthrough role in the controversial low-budget Australian drama 2:37, which was released in 2006.
“I had a goal and I followed that goal,” she says. “Michelle did the same thing — and she actually got to the very top of her profession.”
When it comes to the media spotlight, however, the two are polar opposites. “I am such an extrovert,” says Palmer. “I feel like Michelle is much quieter than me. She doesn’t need to be the centre of attention. That wasn’t a comfortable thing for her, being on the front page of every newspaper, doing interview after interview.”
Having spent most of her adult life in the public eye — the actor’s brief relationship with British bad boy Russell Brand in 2008 put her firmly on the paparazzi’s radar — Palmer is an old hand at dealing with the press.
In recent years, she has used social media and the wellbeing website Your Zen Life, which she launched with fellow Australian actor Phoebe Tonkin in 2012, to take control of her celebrity image.
Palmer and her husband, US actor and director Mark Webber, often post images of themselves and their boys — Forest, two, Bodhi, five, and Isaac, 11, who is Webber’s son from a previous relationship.
After their daughter, Poet, was born in April, Palmer published a series of black-and-white photographs of her water birth on Your Zen Life’s sister website Your Zen Mama.
The goal, she says, is to be as open and authentic as possible. It’s a direct response to the airbrushed nature of Hollywood, borne out of Palmer’s early experiences in the image-focused town.
“There is a machine-like quality to Hollywood. You can be praised and loved one minute and forgotten about the next,” she says. “It was so hard riding the waves of that when I was younger.”
Palmer’s first experience on a major Hollywood production 13 years ago — which saw her unceremoniously replaced by The O.C. star Rachel Bilson on the sci-fi thriller Jumper — was so bad, she almost called it quits, returning to Adelaide with thoughts of a career as a teacher or a midwife.
And earlier this year, Palmer went public with her own #MeToo moment. “When I was 19, I was fired from a job because A: I wasn’t famous enough and B: When pressured to hook up with the lead guy by the producers to have more ‘chemistry’ with him I said no, and was promptly replaced by someone else,” wrote Palmer on Twitter in May, using the #industrytruths hashtag.
“I wish I could go back to my 19-year-old self and give her support,” says Palmer now. “Because I had no-one. I was so young and this was my first big break and I was being pressured to do these things that didn’t feel right. Everyone had this expectation of me to remain quiet and to do as I was told.”
Palmer recalls a senior member of the film’s crew coming to her trailer one day and closing the door behind him.
“He said: ‘I am not asking you to cross the line but to come right up to the line. Go out on a date with him. Flirt with him. That’s how you get real chemistry.’”
“I had a serious long-term boyfriend at the time who I was planning on marrying,” she tells Stellar. “He was there with me. And they had hired my best friend to be my stand in. They sent them both back home to Adelaide so I was alone.
“I ended up developing terrible insomnia and I begged, begged, begged to be replaced.
Every part of me screamed that it was not OK, that it was not respectful. It was a terrible situation. Luckily, my manager helped to ensure that I didn’t have to continue on with that movie and they ended up replacing me.
“The night I found out, I slept for the first time in almost three months. I slept 22 hours straight.”
“I know that women have experienced much worse, but that was my own version of it and it was awful.
“I am so glad we are in a climate now where we are moving towards people being held responsible for their actions and women are opening up and talking about their stories.”
After her ill-fated Jumper experience, Palmer spent a few months at home in Adelaide before her Australian agent persuaded her to take a stab at another film.
She describes Take Me Home Tonight, starring Topher Grace and Anna Faris, as “an incredibly positive experience”.
Although the film was a box office flop, it reignited her passion for acting “and I haven’t had an awful experience since”.
Having children only confirmed Palmer’s suspicion that success doesn’t necessarily equate with some Hollywood ideal.
“I realised that what’s important is what makes me happy. Does this project speak to me? I am less focused on a certain career trajectory.
“I really just read things and if I like them, I do them. If I don’t, I am so happy just being in my home in Adelaide with my family. It’s funny how your goals shift as you get older.”
When Palmer’s father decided to downsize a couple of years ago, she and Webber bought the four-hectare block Palmer grew up on for their own family.
And in the time since she extricated herself so painfully from her Jumper contract, Palmer’s instincts have served her well.
The actor got to flex her action muscles in the sci-fi adventure I Am Number Four, and she confirmed her movie star credentials opposite Benjamin Walker in the Nicholas Sparks romance The Choice.
Standout roles include the romzomcom Warm Bodies, thriller Berlin Syndrome and horror film Lights Out. Palmer also made a strong impression as the wife of conscientious objector Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) in Mel Gibson’s Oscar-winning WWII drama Hacksaw Ridge.
That was the film on which she met Rachel Griffiths, who is making her debut as a feature film director with the biopic Ride Like A Girl, about how Payne beat 100-1 odds in 2015 to become the first woman to win the race that stops a nation.
When she was offered the role, Palmer didn’t hesitate — even though she knew Payne’s riding boots would be hard to fill, and the part would be physically demanding.
MORE STELLAR:
Jennifer Hawkins: ‘The one thing I so dearly wanted couldn’t be planned’
Don’t like Roxy Jacenko? She doesn’t care
“Even just sitting up, in that jockey position, for a prolonged period of time is challenging. And then, of course, I had to get incredibly comfortable around horses.”
Although she had been on trail rides as a 12-year-old, competitive horse racing was something else altogether. “I had real fear. And it was something I wanted to conquer.”
Peter Patterson, son of Flemington legend John Patterson, describes Palmer as “very game, very determined, very focused”.
“You can get on a pony and go for a ride in a paddock, but it’s completely different when you have got to get over the horse’s neck and ride like a jockey,” he says. “A lot of it has to do with courage, and balance.”
Patterson’s training not only helped Palmer bring an authenticity to her portrayal of Payne, but also saved her from serious injury when the ex-race horse she was riding got spooked and bolted.
“I did three quarters of Flemington, up in the jockey position, at a gallop,” recalls Palmer. “He wouldn’t stop.”
When Patterson, who was riding one of the safety horses, tried to catch her, he realised that was making Palmer’s horse go even faster.
“So basically he yelled at me to: ‘Hold the f*ck on!’ That’s what I did. I listened to his command and I held on.”
When the horse finally slowed down to a canter, Palmer jumped off.
“I was afraid he would take off again and I was so fatigued, I knew I would have fallen off, so I actually remembered some of my stunt training from I Am Number Four. I did a stunt roll, the way you are supposed to, and I wasn’t injured.”
While Palmer admits to having been a little shaken by the experience, she got straight back on the horse.
“There wasn’t any other choice,’’ she says with a laugh. “But it only made me feel more empowered. When my job demands something from me, I usually step up to the plate. I find it interesting to learn new skills and have that competitive spirit in me where I want to conquer something that I try.”
The world premiere of Ride Like A Girl will be held today, September 8, at Village Jam Factory in Melbourne ahead of the film’s national release on September 26.