Vanity Fair – February 2010...

Happy New Year, everyone!

Isabel Lucas is featured in the February 2010 issue of Vanity Fair magazine with an absolutely stunning image and a short write up. This is an instant favorite shot of her for me – she’s just so beautiful!

Isabel Lucas
Perhaps you remember her work in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen? Ah yes, she was the android who mounted Shia LaBeouf and strangled him with her tongue. But seriously, Isabel Lucas has a higher purpose. The 24-year-old Australian has worked on irrigation projects in Namibia, raised money for orphanages in India, and paddled out into the Pacific Ocean to combat whaling off of Japan, where she is now wanted for interfering with global commerce. We’ll soon get to see this more soulful side of Lucas in The Pacific, an HBO mini-series about the American-Japanese conflict during World War II, produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. This month she stars in Daybreakers, a futuristic thriller in which she plays human in a world taken over by vampires. After that it’s Red Dawn, a remake of the Cold War–era anti-Commie shoot-’em-up. Lucas takes her “action movie” characters every bit as seriously as the others—even when certain directors don’t. “It’s interesting,” she says, referring to Michael Bay, “when the only direction is ‘You’ve got to be more sexy!’”

The Waiting City review by Variety...

When a Sydney couple travel to chaotic Calcutta to collect their adopted child, the drawn-out process strains their already fragile marriage in the uneven drama “The Waiting City.” Quasi-mystical second feature from Aussie helmer-writer Claire McCarthy (“Cross Life”) lyrically presents the many faces of India and the country’s strong spiritual appeal through Western eyes. But despite convincing thesping and vivid lensing, the pic undermines its grip on viewers with annoying gaffes in plot and character logic and odd shifts in tone. Pic will open on home turf next year, but foreign exposure is likely limited to fest dates and ancillary.

Arriving in Calcutta sans some of their luggage, high-powered lawyer Fiona (Radha Mitchell) and her laid-back musician hubby Ben (Joel Edgerton) quickly get a taste of what it’s like to operate on Indian time. After getting little satisfaction at the baggage claim (“This is India,” a tired worker proclaims), they face an irritating wait for their hotel-dispatched driver, Krishna (Samrat Chakrabarti).

Things don’t go smoothly with the adoption, either. As the agency continues to put off their appointment, long-unresolved relationship issues start to surface. Fiona and Ben ultimately grate on each other’s nerves to the point of separation.
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The Waiting City review by The Hollywood Reporter...

The journey looks like an overly familiar one as “The Waiting City” begins. Westerners confronting, then being rejuvenated by the mysterious East is by now a cliche. Yet Sydney-based writer-director Claire McCarthy proves too smart to fall into that trap. She appreciates and, even better, understands the power Indian spiritualism can have on foreigners, and so has made a persuasive, intimate account of a couple’s encounter with the subcontinent.

By this description alone, you understand this is no “Monsoon Wedding” or even “City of Joy.” While the film’s grip on a viewer dramatically increases as the story moves deeper and deeper into an experience that exposes a couple’s troubled relationship, McCarthy makes no concessions to commercial considerations. The film is solely designed for festivals and art venues but word of mouth should help “The Waiting City” reach a receptive audience.

Radha Mitchell and Joel Edgerton play a 30-something Australian couple, who comes to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) to claim an adopted daughter, Lakshmi. Red tape delays things so they are forced to wait in this exotic and often trying city.
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Transformers Stars Talk Love Triangle...

“He gets into some trouble at college …” Megan Fox says of her onscreen beau, Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky.

In the first Transformers movie, it all seemed so simple: Boy meets impossibly hot girl, witty banter is exchanged, boy gets girl and giant robots attack. In Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, however, a bizarre love triangle disrupts the lives of Sam (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) — with some help from a mysterious new woman.

“She is playing more of the seductress,” explained Isabel Lucas, the sexy young Australian actress who plays Alice in Fallen, the blockbuster film currently breaking box-office records worldwide. “She’s got mysterious intentions that we don’t really know about towards him. He is obviously in a relationship and still with Mikaela at this stage — so he is resisting it quite strongly.”

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Isabel Lucas Dateless Since Last Year...

Despite being one of the hottest young stars in Hollywood, Isabel Lucas can’t find a bloke – and is happily single.

“I haven’t dated anyone since June last year and I think it has been really positive for me to be solo and have time on my own,” Lucas has told Vogue Australia, out next Wednesday.

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Q&A with Isabel Lucas...

Former local Isabel Lucas has found herself with a leading role in one of the year’s biggest blockbusters, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. timeOUT finds out just how it all came about…

How did you land the role in Transformers, Isabel?

I was working on an HBO miniseries called The Pacific, which was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and apparently Steven suggested me to read for the role of Alice, so I went in and auditioned for Michael.

Not exactly a bad person to recommend you for a role.

No (laughs). I’m still pinching myself that’s how it all came about.

Tell me about your character, Alice, in Transformers 2.

Alice is a student at Princeton University. My scenes are predominantly with Shia LaBeouf and Ramon Rodriguez. An interesting relationship develops between myself and Shia, but I’m not allowed to give too much of that away.

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Lucas Might Make Audiences Forget Fox...

When Transformers hit the big screen in 2007, audiences knew to expect a turbocharged bunch of feuding robots, backed by an arsenal of CGI wizardry.

What they also got was the impossibly hourglass-shaped Megan Fox bending over the engine of hero Sam Witwicky’s bumblebee-yellow Camaro. The mechanically savvy Mikaela still holds the crown as every robotics nerd’s dream date.

But starting today, she better watch out. In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, she faces competition that comes with sweeter weaponry than the average Decepticon.

Australian hottie Isabel Lucas joins the franchise as Alice, an alluring classmate Sam (Shia LaBeouf) meets in his first days at college.

“An interesting relationship develops between myself and Shia,” Lucas, 24, has said. In interviews she remains coy about the exact nature of the characters’ bond. “I’m not allowed to give too much of that away.”

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Lucas to Transform Into Hollywood Star...

When Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits cinemas on Thursday, audiences will be treated to a different side of former Home and Away star Isabel Lucas.

The action sequel to 2007’s hugely successful Transformers features Lucas vamping it up as Alice, a student bombshell trying to seduce co-star Shia LaBeouf.

“It’s so enjoyable playing a character that’s so different from yourself, because you can really go and take risks,” Lucas told The Sunday Mail while in Sydney for the premiere of the film, also starring Megan Fox and Josh Duhamel.

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Burning Ambition...

Isabel Lucas is an actress who suffers for her art … up to a point.

The former Home And Away star and Logie winner was in Sydney this week to promote the new Transformers flick in which she stars.

While she’s no Meryl Streep or Cate Blanchett – yet – Lucas, who undertook intense acting classes before she joined the cast of Home And Away, was enthusiastically telling reporters the lengths she had to go to take on her role as a Princeton University student in the sci-fi film.

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Isabel Lucas Transforms...

Hollywood’s a long way from Summer Bay, but the Melbourne-born Home and Away star, Isabel Lucas, has made the trip, and stars in the new blockbuster, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. She was back in her hometown recently, and she took some time out to chat with Citysearch about her transformation from soap star to Hollywood star.

Isabel, congratulations on getting the part of Alice in such a big film. How did it all come about?
I was playing a small role on the miniseries called The Pacific, which is produced by Tom hanks and Steven Spielberg. My agent got a call from Spielberg and asked me to read the role of Alice, because he was also producing Transformers. And I went in auditioned with director Michael Bay. It was surreal, and that’s how I got my foot in the door. It was an unusual audition, because the second half ended up being shot in his car. It was also unusual because when I first arrived, I was wearing a black dress, and he sent me away and told me to go and find a coloured dress, because it was for a summer blockbuster and he didn’t think black was right for the character..

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