From modelling to Mad Max: Charlee Fraser ‘s bold next act
She leaps from fashion to film with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga but honouring her heritage and developing opportunities for first nations creatives is where the model and actor’s true passion lies.
For mere mortals the difference between a good haircut and a bad one is about two weeks of experimenting with caps and holding off on the selfies. But for Charlee Fraser it had the capacity to end her career.
Fashion, ’eh? Them’s the breaks for models, as confronted by “The Supers” back in the day.
In the late 1980s, Linda Evangelista took up Peter Lindbergh’s suggestion of debuting a gamine pixie crop at Milan Fashion Week, where she was booked to walk in 20 shows. However, such was the response to her new look that Evangelista ended up appearing in just four. Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani spotted her loitering around and popped her on the cover.
The rest is history. History that nearly repeated itself 30 years later when Charlee Fraser touched down in New York for her first season. When confronted with the same choice, the model followed in Evangelista’s (heavily-layered) footsteps and chose to cut off her long hair at the suggestion of designer Alexander Wang.
“I had a day or two to marinate it in my mind, and I thought, ‘OK, this is for my career, it’s going to be an amazing show. If they cut my hair, I’m definitely [walking in the show]; it’s not something that they’re going to do and then a second later, take you [out of the lineup]’,” Fraser says.
“And my agent was very supportive. He was like, ‘It’s going to be amazing for you! Just be cool with it when it happens’.”
The Australian was deemed unrecognisable, not that it worried the unflappable Awabakal woman whose bone structure could cut glass and megawatt smile charge a flat Tesla. The crop by esteemed industry stylist Guido Palau was akin to Jennifer Aniston’s Friends-era The Rachel in the fashion world and since then Fraser has gone on to be one of our most successful models. The 2016 Wang presentation was followed by Rodarte before Fraser headed to Europe where she worked with Chanel, Prada, Celine and Balenciaga.
She walked in about 40 fashion shows in that season, something that was ground-breaking for the industry. Not literally – she moves like Fred Astaire in heels – but because Fraser’s original overseas fashion week schedule saw her become the first Indigenous Australian model to crack the international fashion market in such a big way.
When Fraser wasn’t strutting, she was striking poses for campaigns including Celine, Stella McCartney and Givenchy. Vogue Australia identified the tall girl from Newcastle’s talent early and placed her on the cover twice, first in 2018 and again in 2022 alongside Elaine George – the first Indigenous woman to grace the cover of Vogue Australia, back in 1993.
Fraser was 25 and her career was soaring, but then came the most unfashionable trend in living memory: covid.
In 2020, after living in New York for four years, Fraser suddenly found herself stranded when the pandemic stalled the fashion industry. She packed up and departed the Big Apple in what turned out to be the best decision of her life. Her Australian homecoming was enriching to both her soul and her career. She craved a connection to her culture and to country. She strived for the next big thing, which for Fraser was the big screen and even bigger things for our Indigenous creatives.
She also stepped back from modelling, hanging up her stilettos in 2022 and no longer cutting her hair upon request.
“I’ve, very recently, come to the realisation that I have been very, very open my whole life and just realised, ‘Wow, I’ve actually ended up here’ because I’m so open to opportunity when it comes, and open to exploration. I’m a very curious person. So when the opportunity around modelling sort of came to the table when I was 18, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is cool’ and I gave it a go. But it wasn’t something that I intended on doing. I actually finished high school and then started studying beauty and business courses at TAFE [beauty during the day and business classes at night],” Fraser says.
“I’d been modelling full time for about 10 years. I’d travelled the world and I’d done all these amazing things, but I’d never taken time for myself. I wasn’t the 18-year-old girl I had been when I started. I wanted to get to know who I was, who I was becoming and what I really wanted.”
Fraser craved some space to think. It was something she sought even as a kid who grew up hanging out in the jacaranda and gum trees outside her family home, a house full of love and animals, including rabbits, cats, dogs, a couple of goats and a turtle. “I’d climb them [the trees] and just hang out there. I was very imaginative,” she says.
When she touched back down in Australia, Fraser’s outlook pivoted yet again.
In the midst of the pandemic she became the ambassador for First Nations Fashion + Design (FNFD), a not-for-profit Indigenous-led organisation which cultivates and nurtures Indigenous talent within the fashion industry. But she’s not simply the face of the important incubator; she’s now also a director.
These days Fraser is juggling scripts and studying. Yes, she’s also a burgeoning movie star. But Hollywood also has to wait; right now, she’s busy sitting on boards
to help find the next Charlee Fraser to propel to national and international modelling prominence. “I just finished two days of governance training for FNFD, so I’m feeling really full with lots of new information on how to be an effective board director,” she says.
“It’s a lot of work, it’s a huge responsibility and it really opened my eyes to how much these types of organisations have to do. There is a lot of work to do. It has really grounded me now in my role as a director.”
Modelling may have consumed her time for years, but Fraser’s heritage and seeing it represented in our cultural canon is what fills her cup these days.
FNFD was the star of last year’s Australian Fashion Week in Sydney. Its first runway presentation, back in 2021, moved the audience to tears and included three live performances, two dancers, five artists, 21 models and seven designers. It’s a showcase that has gone on to become a must-see event on the annual Sydney schedule and has expanded in both size and emotional impact over the years. The one constant? A standing ovation.
“That big moment, as we continue to grow, was obviously the welcome to country at fashion week followed by the first ever Indigenous show [in 2021]. It was just wild and huge and beautiful and amazing. That felt like a pinnacle moment for us, and me, which is exciting as we’re now building and continuing on this journey with more programs and more fun things to bring to the community and bring to the fashion industry,” Fraser says.
Hers is a type of optimism and “can do” attitude that is infectious; a true young leader who is focused on helping create opportunities and avenues for her fellow First Nations creatives.
Fraser was too busy working to get involved with the politics and the campaign of last year’s failed referendum on the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. But she doesn’t dwell. Not her style. Instead, she remains refreshingly positive and upbeat, focused on helping to establish new opportunities with FNFD. So far this includes partnerships with Bonds, haircare brand Redken and with e-tailer The Iconic, something that came about when FNFD noticed there was a need for additional opportunities
and access to support for designers looking to break into production and distribution channels on a larger scale.
As all this was playing out, Fraser relocated to Byron Bay in northern NSW, volunteered at a farm, took up martial arts and began learning Japanese at a local community college. Things were good. She was living her best laidback life. Then the phone rang. It was her agent. Hollywood had called. Again.
She had been approached about acting before but it hadn’t felt right. Except this time a project headed up by acclaimed Australian director George Miller was on the line and she was asked to audition for the Mad Max prequel, Furiosa.
“I was out there trying new things, getting to know myself. So I was like ‘I’ve got nothing to lose’,” Fraser says of the call that came almost three years ago.
“Everything I’ve done has become very conscious decisions after the fact. They’d become more intentional, but I was just open in the beginning, which is sort of also how the opportunities have come in. Once the opportunity arises, you do the work. You have to do the work to become something. But ultimately being really open and flowing with what arises and being curious and experimenting; that comes with getting to know yourself.”
She hired an acting coach and attacked a monologue for a Zoom audition with the same focus and determination she brought to international runways and fashion vignettes for designers Tory Burch and Tom Ford. She was captivating, arresting, luminous. And after the subsequent call with Miller, Fraser landed the role of Mary Jabassa – Furiosa’s mother – alongside Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor-Joy in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which just celebrated its Australian premiere with a star-studded event in Sydney.
“I found Charlee had a raw, fierce quality that really suited the character of Mary Jabassa – a warrior and the guardian of her people,” Miller tells WISH.
“In preparation for her role, Charlee trained in combat, firearms and horseback riding. She could already ride a motorcycle but had to learn how to drive the heavy bikes in the film. She threw herself into every dimension of Jabassa and crafted a formidable presence that foreshadows Furiosa’s strength and perseverance and gives her story a grounded beginning.”
So intense was that time in Fraser’s life that she barely recalls anything other than what Mary was thinking and Miller’s direction. She lost herself in Spotify playlists she made for Mary, which featured “a lot of Hans Zimmer”, and used fragrances such as oud to “cross the rubicon” into the fantasy realm.
“I really tapped out and into the grit of the role, her being and the intensity that Mary is. I really checked out a little bit from reality to really find her world and find her existence. I was really, deeply working in her post-apocalyptic world and how she functioned. I was in quite a bubble at the time,” Fraser says.
“I dived into the music of Mary and then had a particular kind of scent. Scent is something that I love. I’m very big on fragrance, perfumes, candles and incense as smells transport you. I’m very, very passionate about that. So that has become like a part of my core process.”
How she cut her acting teeth – on the Sydney-filmed Anyone But You – was less intense, but the preparation methods stayed the same. On the set of the rom-com Fraser listened to Miley Cyrus’s Flowers and Beyonce’s Cuff It on repeat and focused on learning how to be “shameless”.
Fraser plays the gorgeous Australian ex-girlfriend of Ben (Top Gun’s Glen Powell) in the twee yet bona fide box-office hit that also features Sydney Sweeney, star of Euphoria and an Emmy-nominated performance in The White Lotus. Her role of Margaret had the potential to be a pin up for our cultural cringe, thanks to lines tinged with more slang than a Kevin Bloody Wilson album, but Fraser leaned in and made it genuinely hilarious. She shone as the moral centre and heart of the movie.
It was an all-star cast for Australian audiences, with industry stalwarts Bryan Brown and Rachel Griffiths also delivering great performances.
“It was just amazing. It was just so fun. And there was such a large ensemble cast. The most impactful thing that I heard from more of our seasoned cast, incredible actors like Bryan and Rachel, was to us young ’uns was that when you have such a large ensemble cast, it’s very rare that every single one of us connect and get along. And we did. There’s sometimes so many different energies in the room and sometimes some people just stick to themselves or don’t necessarily vibe. They kept reminding us that this was such an incredible experience and rare for us all to be here and to be so close and literally like family for this whole journey. There were no hiccups. Nothing. It was just pure love and fun,” she says.
While many of these films traditionally pit women against each other as they vie for the attention of the conventionally handsome leading bloke, Anyone But You didn’t follow the usual rom-com template. There is no villainising or ill-will against any of the other characters, potentially a contributing factor in the film’s wide commercial appeal, despite a lukewarm critical response.
In the film, Margaret becomes a friend of Sweeney’s character, Bea, running errands together and exchanging dialogue that was more thought-provoking than it was provocative.
“I thought that was really beautiful and I loved the way that was written,” Fraser says.
“It was a really nice portrayal of that kind of dynamic between women … We didn’t want the audience to hate Margaret [for being the other woman], we wanted them to root for her.”
Art imitates life as you can’t help but want to root for Fraser, too.
She’s been a trailblazer. A quiet but incredible force in the creative spaces of fashion and film and she’s not yet 30. And for her next act expect to see more of the same. More movies, more saying yes to opportunities, more leading by example for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians keen to break into her worlds.
“I’m so passionate about fashion, which is why I’ve been in it for such a long time. And my relationship to fashion is 100 per cent not over. I was born and raised as a model and I hold that very, very near and dear to my heart. My relationship with fashion is evolving and changing. So while I might not be modelling as much anymore, I’m still going to be very present and very involved in the fashion industry in many different ways that I’m super excited to explore and cover and unfold,” Fraser says.
“I love the industry so much and I’m not going anywhere. I will be film focused, but there’s still going to be a lot of fashion involvement, especially when it comes to creating opportunities for FNFD.”
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is in cinemas on May 23.
This story is from the May issue of WISH.
