Name: Eliza Scanlen
Notable past credits: The 24-year-old Australian actress burst onto the scene in HBO’s “Sharp Objects” in 2018, alongside Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson. She then went on to appear in Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women.”
Sundance project: “The Starling Girl,” in which she stars as a 17-year-old girl named Jem coming of age in a Christian fundamentalist community in rural Kentucky.
First impressions of Park City: “It’s just jaw-dropping. To have a film festival, on its own, is such a wonderful experience. But to have this as a backdrop is otherworldly. It is very dramatic. There’s a gravitas there to the films that you watch.”
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Her list of films to catch: “I’m excited to see ‘Eileen.’ I’m good friends with Thomasin [McKenzie, who stars in the film alongside Anne Hathaway]. I love Will Oldroyd and I love Ottessa Moshfegh [who wrote the book]. Also, I’m looking forward to seeing ‘Mami Wata.’”
Scanlen was working on another film “Caddo,” in Louisiana when the producer, Kara Durrett, asked her if she was interested in hearing about another film she was working on.
“I was just struck by the script straight away. It’s been a long time in the making, so it felt very tight. And it was just a very well crafted story, with surprises and twists and turns and a lot of nuance and complexity, such a complicated subject matter,” Scanlen says. “There’re so many films and shows about Christian fundamentalism, and the reality, in those communities, is that women often don’t have much power. And Jem doesn’t have much power, but I think what made her feel different was that she had a fiery spirit. She was very expressive and she had this outlet of dancing that meant the world to her. And I found that to be a really exciting aspect of Jem as a character, rather than just feeling…I guess what I’m trying to say is that there was a multitude of things that I was drawn to. And it didn’t feel weighed down by just the Christian fundamentalism aspect.”
After “Sharp Objects” blew up, Scanlen says her life changed in a lot of ways, but her career has been more a slow burn.
“I mean, it was quite jarring to finish the show and then, after a whole year of not working.…I think that’s what people don’t really see, is that there’s a lot of downtime while you’re trying for the next job, where you expect that you’ll get another job but it just doesn’t happen for you,” she says. “But things did start to change after the premiere. And, quite soon after that, I booked ‘Little Women.’ So it was just quite an overwhelming time for me to get used to all that.”
In that vein, she doesn’t know what her next project is but isn’t in a rush to book something just to have a role lined up.
“I like to think I’m in it for the long game,” she says.