Who is Isabel Lucas? Inside the anti-vaxxer actor’s life

Former Home And Away actor Isabel Lucas has been making headlines this week for her anti-vax stance and refusal of COVID testing. Here’s a look at the star’s life.

Since springing onto the set of Home And Away as Tasha Andrews 17 years ago, Isabel Lucas has gained as many headlines for her acting as she has for her activism and controversial views.

The 35-year-old actor is filming a new movie, but its not her acting career that’s grabbed attention but instead her anti-vax stance following her refusal of a COVID test ahead of filming her latest project in Australia.

Lucas, who shunned Hollywood in 2016 in favour of a blissed-out life in Byron Bay, revealed last month that she skipped coronavirus testing on the set of feature film Bosch & Rockit, believing her immune system is strong from how she “lives and eats and thinks”.

RELATED: Australian soap star Isabel Lucas ‘opted out’ of COVID test

Isabel Lucas has come under fire this year for her coronavirus views. Picture: Richard Dobson

“I gave my duty of care of what I could offer to respect everyone’s health and maintain my own health, and I shared that, and I opted out of doing the COVID test,” the actor, who has previously said she “doesn’t trust” vaccination, said of the move.

Producers have since claimed they were not aware Lucas had not followed the film’s safety guidelines.

The flick, also starring Luke Hemsworth, follows a father and son who are pursued by crooked cops.

It is the first feature film for Lucas — who has darted in and out of acting over the past few years — since 2018, when she played Rose in the story of Errol Flynn’s early life, In Like Flynn.

Here, we take a look back at the star’s career and recent controversies:

CAREER BEGINNINGS

The Melbourne-born actor started her career on iconic soap Home And Away in 2003 at the age of just 18.

Her character Tasha’s wild storyline took her through all the regular character milestones: being found on a beach speaking nothing but pig Latin, taken under Irene’s wing and taught English, joining a cult, being impregnated by the cult leader, eventually escaping and moving away to the US.

RELATED: Lucas hits back over vaccine comments

Isabel Lucas and Chris Hemsworth in a scene from Home And Away. Picture: Supplied.

Following her time on the show, Lucas – who is believed to have dated on-screen romance and fellow Byron Bay resident Chris Hemsworth for three years – then focused on saving dolphins in Japan for a year, before relocating to LA in 2008.

She went on to work with Steven Spielberg on the World War II miniseries The Pacific, and scored the role of Alice in the 2009 film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Her performance earned her the award for Best Breakout Performance-Female in sci-fi and action at the 2009 Scream Awards.

In 2008, Lucas was cast in the vampire science-fiction thriller film Daybreakers and the following year, played Erica Martin in the remake of the 1984 film Red Dawn alongside Chris Hemsworth.

In the years that followed, she appeared in films The Waiting City and Immortals, and featured in the music video for Ed Sheeran’s Give Me Love.

She also starred alongside Nick Jonas in Careful What You Wish For.

FLEEING HOLLYWOOD

From 2017 to 2018, Lucas played Samantha Cage in CBS’s remake of MacGyver.

While she may have been the envy of many Australian stars trying to make it in Hollywood, after two seasons, she quit and abruptly moved back to her homeland.

Lucas later told the Herald Sun that working on the show was exhausting, and often consisted of working up to 15-hours a day, six days a week.

“You’d start at 5am and wrap around 9.30pm and six days a week. I feel exhausted just talking about it,” she recalled.

RELATED: Isabel Lucas ‘happy to stay out of the spotlight’

Isabel Lucas and Luke Hemsworth on the setofBosch & Rockitwhich is currently filming in and around Byron Bay. Picture: Nathan Edwards.

She went on to say she didn’t feel a strong sense of community in Hollywood, preferring to live in Australia and travel abroad for specific projects.

“It’s just like being in a little fishbowl and over a long time it’s not healthy. It’s not a natural, healthy sense of community, we don’t function naturally that way.”

ACTIVISM

In October 2007, Lucas was part of a group of 30 people from Surfers for Cetaceans, including US actor Hayden Panettiere, who took part in a protest against dolphin culling in Japan.

The group paddled out on surfboards to the dolphins in an attempt to stop the hunt, but were forced to turn around after being intercepted by a fishing boat.

Over the years, Lucas has supported several charities and organisations, including the Australian National Breast Cancer Foundation, World Vision, The Humour Foundation, and Oxfam.

These days, she’s fighting for a different cause – weighing in on the conspiracies surrounding coronavirus by questioning the 5G network and any potential health effects related to it.

Lucas says she ‘doesn’t trust’ vaccinations. Picture: Josie Hayden

COVID CONTROVERSIES

In April this year, Lucas spoke out about her stance on vaccines, saying she didn’t “trust the path” of vaccination. She also urged people to look to alternative medicines to treat coronavirus.

After Lucas made the comments, she was dropped as the ambassador for the girl’s rights charity Plan International Australia – a role she’d taken on just a month earlier.

The charity said at the time they were “aware of the issue” and had come to an agreement with Lucas to “end the partnership”.

Lucas later made comments in an Instagram post, asking if freedom of speech was at risk.

“Freedom of speech is a human right – is it a risk,” she asked.

“My family raised me to believe that’s wise to calmly question important topics in my community. Recently I’ve been saddened to witness friends being labelled or attacked for respectfully questioning and examining certain topics,” she wrote.

“Topics that are not only relevant to the potential health and safety of their own families, but to everyone on the planet.”

Lucas went on to discuss 5G technology, and whether it could be linked to illness in the lengthy post.

After Lucas’ views received considerable media coverage, she released a statement clarifying her stance on vaccines.

“I’d like to clarify a misunderstanding that the media recently reported on my behalf. I have concerns around ‘mandatory’ vaccination, not vaccination itself,” Lucas said.

“Moving forward, I’d like to welcome and invite cohesive, clear and calm communication around ‘mandatory’ vaccines, ethical vaccine testing and how to support every human being to have the right to freedom of choice. Thank you.”

On “opting out” of COVID testing on the Bosch & Rockit set, she told the Alfa Vedic podcast: “Everyone was really respectful and really honouring of, like, how to maintain health while this very tricky time is underway. But I needed to do that. I felt like it was quite an understanding, relaxed group of people.”

She continued: “My immune system has just become so solid from my way of life, how I live and eat and think.

“So it was a really beautiful experience all up, even though people were wearing masks most of the time and adhering to those rules.”

In a statement to The Sydney Morning Herald, however, the producers said they were unaware Lucas had not followed the film’s COVID-Safe guidelines.

“Every cast and crew member was required to sign an acknowledgment that they would adhere to the COVID-Safe guidelines adopted by the production, which included an acknowledgment that they had been COVID-tested prior to principal photography,” Black Pearl Productions said.