Predestination star Sarah Snook is incredible, Ethan Hawke says

SARAH Snook gets to play a woman – and a man alongside Ethan Hawke, who has described her acting as “unlike anything” he’s ever seen in their film Predestination.

PREDESTINATIONhas ruined Sarah Snook for other movies. In only her fifth feature, the Adelaide girl turned on-the-verge international star was handed the type of role women dream of, but usually go without, their entire career.

She gets to fight and be physical. She has great back and forth with a great co-star, Ethan Hawke. She has romance, pain, drama and adventure.

She also gets to play a man.

Stepping on to the Melbourne set of the film, directed by Queensland brothers Peter and Michael Spierig, Snook told herself to make the most of it.

“I was like, right, put in as much effort as you can, because this doesn’t happen a lot, Sarah. Really relish it. I have to keep myself in check in terms of the luxury of that so early in my career. Maybe I’ll still be doing films in 20 years, but I can’t imagine myself doing this kind of role again.”

Predestination is a tough film to explain. It’s a sci-fi, time-travelling, mind-bender in which Hawke’s character travels through time to stop crime then, after hearing the amazing life story of Snook’s character and how she transitioned from woman to man, shows her/him the ropes of his shady organisation.

One of Snook’s early lines, when she’s a man, sees her spit: “What do I look like?”

The answer: Sarah Snook dressed as a man looks like a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

“So many people have said that!” Snook exclaims, laughing. “I didn’t see it. People on set were like, ‘Woah!’ I was like, ‘Oh, someone said it now you’ve all picked it up’.

AUSSIE SCI-FI FILM: Sarah Snook stars in what could be a box office hit

Looks like Leonardo DiCaprio .. Sarah Snook as a man in Predestination.

“But now it’s been an unusual amount of random people who have commented, so maybe that will be my niche … maybe I will play a man again and it will be the younger Leonardo DiCaprio.

“I kind of hope not. If I could maybe just play a film with him, but not as him. That might be good.”

At 27, Snook’s film work thus far has included best friend/love interest for Ryan Kwanten in rom-com Not Suitable For Children, a crazed woman who has lost her daughter in These Final Hours, and a girl in the Deep South tormented by a creepy spirit in US horror film Jessabelle (filmed in 2012, the latter is finally getting a US VOD release in November).

She’s also just completed two projects she describes as “chalk and cheese”, which will hit screens next year.

Oddball is a family comedy in the Red Dog vein, co-starring Shane Jacobson. “Chicken farmer, crazy, wacky egg time!” says Snook. The other is ABC TV miniseries The Secret River, which is more “serious dialogue about Australia’s racist history and convict past,” she says. While she’s hardly kept it simple or samey, playing a man in naturalistic style was a whole new mountain to climb.

High praise ... Ethan Hawke is a fan of Sarah Snook after working with her on Predestination.

“I grew up the youngest of three girls and fairly tomboyish — I’d always be helping my dad fix the car. He’d be like, ‘Hand me the hammer. Thanks, son!’ ‘Oh Daaad!’ Most of my friends through high school were guys. So the fun of pretending to be a man was definitely present but having to actually handle that properly was a different feeling.

“Once I got over the embarrassment of, OK, now I really have to be a man and not be jokey, it was an easier ride. I enjoyed it. Dudes have it easier — especially with make-up. I mean, it took a lot of make-up to make me look like that.”

Speaking from New York, Hawke — who starred in the Spierigs’ last film, Daybreakers — is the first to admit he had it a lot easier on Predestination than Snook. Yet he found being on the receiving end of her performance “thrilling”.

“I didn’t know who she was at all but I knew the film’s success or failure really rested in her hands,” he says.

“Sarah’s performance is one of the most incredible I’ve ever been a part of. It’s one thing to do a moving portrait of a transgender person, but to do it in a genre film is really an accomplishment. I really want people to see the film to experience what an incredible performance this is. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before.”

Landed on her feet ... Sarah Snook who loves the stage and the Hollywood screen.

Snook loved working with Hawke and observing how he interacted with the Spierigs. As she says, the US star has “been acting longer than I’ve been alive”, so has earnt the right to air his ideas.

“I remember him from White Fang days and Dead Poets Society,” she says. “My sister had a headshot of him up on her wall, so he was one of the first celebrity people I knew of when I was a kid. I knew Billy Crystal, John Candy, Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson and Ethan Hawke. What a weird bunch of people.”

When reviews emerged from Predestination’s premiere at US festival SXSW in March, the universal word on Snook was “revelation”. One problem: Snook isn’t sure how that buzz turns into something solid for her career internationally.

Acting credentials ... Sarah Snook is a NIDA Graduate.

“I wish there was some sort of known amount — like, this is the ratio or currency. If you capitalise on it, it helps. But you’ve got to do that. And I haven’t done that yet. Maybe I should go and do that,” she says.

Snook famously made the shortlist for David Fincher’s Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and has shot a pilot, Clementine, for US network ABC. Although it wasn’t picked up for series, the network is keeping her on contract until October. Either way, she’s keen for overseas buzz to become overseas busy.

“Hopefully, it turns into something soon.”

see PREDESTINATION OPENS TODAY