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‘Amazing’ Leila George steps out of her parents’ shadow

The Australian actor and daughter of Greta Scacchi and Vincent D’Onofrio appears in Vogue Australia’s September issue, celebrating her major screen role alongside Cate Blanchett.

Sydney-born actor Leila George for Vogue Australia. Picture: Max Papendieck / Vogue Australia
Sydney-born actor Leila George for Vogue Australia. Picture: Max Papendieck / Vogue Australia

For a long time, Leila George didn’t want to be an actor. The daughter of Greta Scacchi and Vincent D’Onofrio, born in Sydney but raised in the UK, resisted her parents’ vocation. “I was fighting against it for so long,” she tells Vogue Australia’s September issue.

The first moment she remembers feeling the alluring pull of acting was when she was 12, playing Nancy in a school production of Oliver. Looking out from the stage, she spotted her parents sitting side by side in the audience.

“If I’m on stage acting, then my parents are in the same room,” George remembers thinking. “Which is funny because today I think it’s my worst nightmare! I don’t long for that at all … but I just saw them proud of me together, and that was really cool.”

At the Venice Film Festival this week, the 32-year-old actor unveiled her biggest project to date, a starring role in Disclaimer, a highly anticipated AppleTV+ miniseries written and directed by the Oscar-winning auteur Alfonso Cuaron, in which she stars with Cate Blanchett. At the premiere, Cuaron and the cast received a rapturous six-minute ovation.

Speaking to Vogue, Cuaron said he is “the biggest fan”, having seen her in the American remake of the Australian drama Animal Kingdom. “I want to keep working with Leila,” he enthused. “She is an amazing, thoughtful and profound person. I love her.”

Leila George. Picture: Max Papendieck
Leila George. Picture: Max Papendieck

In the series, George stars as a younger version of Blanchett’s character (she spent a week observing Blanchett to copy her mannerisms) – a documentary filmmaker and mother to a young son, solo parenting on an Italian beach holiday. She begins an affair with a man she meets on the beach, played by Louis Partridge, before tragedy befalls the pair.

George admits that she is lucky she has two acting luminaries as parents and that they are on hand for any questions she might have about the business.

“But I definitely wanna find things out on my own,” she said.

The full story appears in Vogue Australia’s September issue, on sale Monday

Hannah-Rose Yee
Hannah-Rose YeePrestige Features Editor

Hannah-Rose Yee is Vogue Australia's features editor and a writer with more than a decade of experience working in magazines, newspapers, digital and podcasts. She specialises in film, television and pop culture and has written major profiles of Chris Hemsworth, Christopher Nolan, Baz Luhrmann, Margot Robbie, Anya Taylor-Joy and Kristen Stewart. Her work has appeared in The Weekend Australian Magazine, GQ UK, marie claire Australia, Gourmet Traveller and more.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/amazing-leila-george-steps-out-of-her-parents-shadow/news-story/68475c9aaa39f179c08eb107f5b24193