MEET... Eliza Scanlen

Little Women, Babyteeth... the Australian actor has a knack for spotting a great project – and her next one is no different

SPOILER ALERT: ELIZA SCANLEN’S CHARACTERS USUALLY DIE. Scarlet fever, cancer, death by hanging… The endings are bleak. Her latest role – in director M Night Shyamalan’s Old – is so secret we can’t confirm if she’ll stick to the trend but, given the horror-thriller vibes, we’re not going to bet against it.

Based on the graphic novel Sandcastle, the film follows a group of beachgoers – including Gael García Bernal’s welcome return to the screen – who find themselves trapped in a mysterious cove where they rapidly begin to age. ‘All I can say is that it’s pretty apocalyptic and poignant for our time,’ says 22-year-old Scanlen from her home in Sydney. Shyamalan’s name was enough to make Scanlen jump at the project, despite being ‘terrible’ at watching horror movies. ‘The Sixth Sense is a classic and Split was amazing,’ she says. ‘[Shyamalan] has established his own genre – his films have made an impression on the world of cinema.’

Growing up in Sydney, watching Wes Anderson films blew Scanlen’s mind, but it was a trip to the theatre as a teenager that set her career on track. ‘I realised

I wanted to be up there, too.’ From then on, she funnelled all her teenage angst into drama lessons at school. ‘I got very angry with anyone who saw it as a lazy subject, because [drama] gave me purpose.’ Scanlen soon started taking acting classes at weekends and, at 16, begged her parents to let her go on a three-week acting course in the US, where she secured a manager on the spot.

Two weeks after her final school exams, 18-year-old Scanlen flew to LA to audition for Sharp Objects in front of series lead Amy Adams and director Jean-Marc Vallée

(Dallas Buyers Club). ‘There was no time to be starstruck. If I’d stopped to take it all in, I probably would have started convulsing,’ she says.

Scanlen landed her breakout role as the show’s troubled teen Amma Crellin two days later and moved to LA for filming soon after. ‘There were a lot of lonely moments. It forced me to grow up quickly,’ she says.

And Adams was (and is) a huge support: ‘I was clueless and she basically coached me,’ says Scanlen. ‘She’s really maternal. I went to her house and we sang karaoke with her daughter all night – lots of Moana.’

Adams told Scanlen that next she should work with people her own age and have ‘shitloads of fun’. And in playing Beth March in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, she did just that. She shared an apartment block in Boston with co-stars Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Saoirse Ronan during filming. ‘We were a bunch of rascals together,’ she says, ‘We had these big dinner parties all the time.’ The friendships have lasted. She’s since had Thanksgiving dinner with Ronan in London and a New York getaway with Pugh: ‘We were in the audience for Saturday Night Live and shared a hotel room. It was so much fun.’

Her knack for choosing roles that tread the careful line between prestige and mass appeal continued after Little Women, when Scanlen appeared in Aaron Sorkin’s mega hit

To Kill A Mockingbird on Broadway, before landing her debut film lead in Babyteeth, Shannon Murphy’s coming-of-age tale that reinvents the weepy cancer indie-dramedy. ‘The on-set atmosphere was electric. Seeing the project grow from start to finish made me realise how much I love this job,’ she says.

The start of the Covid pandemic gave Scanlen a moment to pause and be with her loved ones in Sydney. ‘I’ve been able to grow in other ways,’ she says, explaining that she has spent the time writing and directing her own short films. ‘It has allowed me to explore being on the other side of the camera.’ She’s also taking university courses in philosophy and environmental studies.

The challenge now? To juggle her own projects, finish that degree and continue her turbo-charged ascent in Hollywood. ‘I’d also love to try comedy… but, mostly,

I just don’t want [my characters] to die anymore.’

Old is in cinemas 30 July

“The Little Women cast were a BUNCH of rascals.We had PARTIES all the time ”