Larger than life characters cast a spell on Teresa Palmer

The Australian actor, starring in season two of fantasy series A Discovery of Witches, doesn’t take the responsibility lightly.

Teresa Palmer. Picture: Supplied

Remember when Teresa Palmer played Michelle Payne, the first woman to ride a winning horse in the Melbourne Cup? The role was big. The hype was even bigger. So you might think playing the fictional character of a witch (even a reluctant one) would come as a welcome change of pace.

But not for Palmer, the 34-year-old Australian actor, who grew up in Adelaide and is now based in Los Angeles with her family.

Palmer says taking on the role of Payne came with the same level of “self-imposed pressure” she felt embarking on her role as Diana Bishop in the popular Binge series, A Discovery of Witches, based on the wildly popular All Soul trilogy of novels.

Bringing to life the central character of Diana Bishop, an American historian studying at Oxford who finds herself in a world of dark magic, Palmer explained, meant attempting to meet the expectations of those devoted to the wildly popular All Souls books, written by Deborah Harkness.

“I did feel a similar kind of pressure (to playing Michelle Payne) — not because (Diana’s) based on a factual real-life person, but because she’s so beloved by millions of fans around the world – people who feel deeply connected to the trilogy,” Palmer says.

“I also felt such pressure playing her because she deserves someone to really sink their teeth into the character and peel back all the many layers of Diana Bishop. I wanted to do her justice.”

On the other hand, Palmer said it was “invaluable” to get close to Michelle Payne when she played the real life sporting hero, and to have her as a sounding board while filming.

“She is such a special, amazing, incredible individual to play. But it was also one of the challenges in many ways,” she says.

Teresa Palmer as Michelle Payne in a scene from the movie Ride Like A Girl. Picture: Transmission Films

Palmer tells The Australian she has sought out “well rounded, dynamic and complex” female characters throughout her career. Before Ride Like a Girl 2019, where she starred alongside Sam Neill and the protagonist’s real-life brother, Stevie Payne, Palmer played Dorothy Schutte in the Oscar winning Mel Gibson film, Hacksaw Ridge, in 2016.

She says Diana’s struggles with her identity and vulnerability drew her into the role of Diana whose life is altered when she stumbles a across a mysterious manuscript called Ashmole 782.

The medieval document forces her to realise her powers as a witch and she finds herself entwined in a forbidden romance with vampire Matthew de Clairmont (Matthew Goode).

“What I love is that she is so grounded. As a woman, she can be so many different things. She can be fragile, brave and daring, but also coy, shy and insecure,” she says.

“There are just so many shades of who she is … and for me, that’s what I gravitated to because she felt real.”

After filming wrapped on the second instalment of the DOW series in Italy, Palmer, along with her husband, Mark Webber, and her three children, Forest, Bodhi and Poet, managed to flee the country two weeks before it became the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic.

“This was back in January and afterwards we quarantined in South Australia for six months … I think we happen to be in one of the safest states in the safest country. We really got lucky,” she says.

“I said to my husband that was the most time I had spent in one place since I was 19.

“It was so refreshing, the slow pace. If we could find a silver lining, it would be we learned the power of slowing down.”

Matthew Goode as Matthew Clairmont and Teresa Palmer as Diana Bishop in A Discovery of Witches. Picture: Binge/Sky

Palmer says the toughest moment during the COVID crisis was being separated from her 12-year-old stepson, Isaac, before he was granted an exemption to travel to Australia.

“We felt so lucky to be where we were, but the biggest challenge was being separated from him.”

A Discovery of Witches season 2 streams on Binge