‘You really don’t know when you’ll be working again’: Samara Weaving on the reality of Hollywood

Despite being hot property in Hollywood, Australian actor Samara Weaving still feels she has something to prove – and she likes it that way.

Picture: Getty Images

Like her friend and fellow actor Margot Robbie, she’s the quintessential Aussie blonde making her mark in Hollywood.

And Samara Weaving certainly looks the part of an archetypal starlet (notably, she played one in the 2022 movie Babylon, and also portrayed an aspiring actress in Ryan Murphy’s 2020 TV miniseries Hollywood).

But even Weaving admits she often doesn’t feel like one.

“When you start out acting, you really don’t know when you’ll be working again,” she tells Stellar.

“And I don’t know if that fear ever goes away. In terms of, is a movie going to be good? I’ve had to learn to let the result go. I have no control over how a project will be cut. All I can control is how I show up every day. I try to do my best, and then I leave it up to the movie gods.”

Samara Weaving has opened up about life in LA, as she prepares to release a new Australian project. Picture: WireImage

City of angels! Samara Weaving in her adopted home of LA. Picture: Getty Images for Balenciaga

Staying grounded is how Adelaide-born Weaving – who got her break as Indigo “Indi” Walker in Australian soap Home And Away, landed a string of US horror movies including The Babysitter and Ready Or Not, and starred in the 2023 biographical film Chevalier – keeps herself in check.

She doesn’t read reviews, “or pay attention to any of that”, for her own sanity.

“The experience of making a film is what’s important,” she says. “That’s months and months of my life. If I get my self-worth from how well the movie is going to do, it’s dangerous. If it doesn’t do well, that’s not great for my mental health.

“I have imposter syndrome. I feel like a lot of people in this business do. I started out reading reviews when I was younger – the first few films I worked on. I’d always find one that was bad. And I’d spiral about it and question everything. From then on, I decided: you know what? It’s on the internet. It’s not in my actual reality. And the people who do matter – my friends and family – even if they’re lying, they will be nice to me.”

Married to Cocaine Bear writer Jimmy Warden since 2019, Weaving – the niece of revered British-Australian actor Hugo Weaving – describes herself as a “bit of a homebody”. LA, she says, “is where the dog and the cat and the husband are”.

Don’t look back! Picture: Getty Images

It’s also where her close group of girlfriends is – including Robbie and a string of other Australians.

Speaking of Robbie, Weaving says: “We met at her house five or six years ago. She’s great; our husbands are like best friends. I have a really good group of girlfriends in LA – a lot of Aussies – and we really try to make time for each other and hang out, go for dinners, and leave the husbands at home. It’s so important to have that in LA because it can get really overwhelming.”

Trips to Australia aren’t as frequent as Weaving would like – “I try to go at least once a year” – though her latest project is close to home. Weaving is again voicing the role of Batty (a sassy stray pooch known for her Houdini-like skills in evading dog catchers) in the Australian animated movie 200% Wolf, a sequel to 2020’s 100% Wolf.

Weaving says acting in the voice role is not much different from live-action movies – although, she muses, “You can just do it in your pyjamas. You don’t have to get your make-up done every morning; you can just roll in wearing whatever.”

While she’s used to putting on an American accent for most of her performances, she delivered this one in her own thick, Aussie drawl.

It’s a marked departure from Weaving’s other work, which – as she points out – has often centred around the horror genre, including a memorable role in the opening sequence of 2023’s Scream VI.

“I have screamed a lot, I guess,” she says with a laugh.

“I was auditioning for a bunch of roles in the US when I was 19, and I got The Babysitter, which was a horror. After that I got offered a lot of horror movies. I love working with horror directors, they’re always a bit crazy and funny – they always have some levity to them. And the fan base for those movies is really fun, too.”

She has now shared the screen with some of Hollywood’s biggest names – including Nicole Kidman, in Nine Perfect Strangers.

In Paris with Saint Laurent. Picture: Getty Images

“I have so many heroes I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” she says. “I didn’t go to school for acting, so I’ve learnt a lot from working with people who I admire. I think the last person who blew me away was Michael Shannon, in Nine Perfect Strangers; he had this monologue, we were all sitting around a table, and it was like having a front-row seat for the best one-man-show in town. I was just soaking it all up and taking notes.”

Weaving is speaking with Stellar from the US city of Cleveland, where she is shooting Eenie Meanie alongside Andy Garcia. “I think it’s going to be cool,” she says of the film.

“It’s a drama, it’s funny, it’s romantic, it’s got a lot of action in it – a lot of driving, kind of a bit of everything.”

So does Weaving finally feel like she’s made it? “I’m trusting more and more that, if I look at the facts, I have consistently worked,” she says.

“It would be pretty weird if, suddenly, I didn’t work for ages. For a while I was auditioning and auditioning and I wouldn’t get anything. It’s very much a business of rejection, you know? You get rejected more than you get accepted. That gets a bit hard to shake. I wouldn’t say it’s debilitating – it’s not as scary any more. I’m just mindful of it. When that fear comes up, I can go, ‘OK, one day at a time.’

“When I am working, it’s so fun – but it’s 16-hour days, night shoots, it’s exhausting.

“When I’m not working, I have to remind myself: you probably are going to get a job. You need to enjoy the downtime, rather than stress about the future.”

200% Wolf is in cinemas from August 8. For more from Stellar, click here.

Originally published as ‘You really don’t know when you’ll be working again’: Samara Weaving on the reality of Hollywood