Teresa Palmer is an Australian actress that has been turning heads ever since her low budget debut in the drama, 2:37. Moving to Los Angeles she lit up the screen in Warm Bodies, Lights Out and Point Break. Raised in Adelaide, Palmer returned to Sydney recently to appear in the Mel Gibson directed WWII feature, Hacksaw Ridge. Palmer plays Dorothy Doss, the wife of the film’s real life protagonist Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield). Doss refused to carry a rifle into combat and Hacksaw Ridge is his story. Palmer is an advocate for mindfulness and has a site well worth checking out called Your Zen Life. Here she chats to Sean Sennett about all of the above and what it was like to work with the great Terrence Malick on Knight of Cups.

How did you become attached to this film? Did you have to audition personally for Mel Gibson? 

I actually did an audition for Mel Gibson. I put myself down on tape on my iPhone with my husband. He played Desmond Doss and I was Dorothy. My husband (Mark Webber) is a director as well. He decided to set up the scene in our bedroom. He directed me, and we sent it off, and then ended up Skyping with Mel a couple of months later. That was it. I don’t think Mel really auditioned anyone in person. He just likes to get a vibe and says ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

How did you psychologically prepare for a character like Dorothy, set in that time zone – America in the early 1940’s – and from that background?

It was interesting because there was a lot that went into the preparation because she was a real person. I listened to audio tapes of her speaking. I worked with a dialect coach. I probably clocked in 30 or 40 hours of dialect sessions. I wanted it to be very specific to her voice, and what her intonations were, and the level of how her voice sounded. I had to completely change my voice. That was interesting and a very different process for me. I’d never done anything like that before.

Then meeting with hair and makeup, and discussing her looks, and who she was. And it was a collaborative effort with Mel too. We came into a place where we agreed on who she was, and then we went from there.

It’s quite an emotional trajectory your character goes through. There’s romance to heavy drama in only a few short scenes. 

Yeah, definitely. We got a lot of insight into who she was from her family and from Desmond’s family. We had a foundation of information to go from. She’s just a woman who supports her husband and is unwavering in her love for him. Yet, she is someone who had vulnerabilities. There is that moment in the jail cell with her husband, where she second guesses what they’re doing. It was a really beautiful arc she had, and I wanted to breathe life into it as authentically as possible.

I really loved Knight of Cups. I didn’t really understand it, but loved the film. Did you understand it, and what was it like working with Terrence Malick?

I think Malick’s films are pieces of art. It is something different to every person, so whatever your interpretation of it is, it is correct. That’s how he makes films. It’s very different from traditional filmmakers. It’s really an art piece.

I took away from it something different than my husband took away from it, and what someone else took away from it. I think it’s a very personal experience watching his films. I loved that aspect of it. He’s an incredible filmmaker. I enjoyed it. It was all ad libbed. You don’t have a script. You just go in and interact with characters. You don’t know anything that’s going on, and you just kind of create a narrative out of thin air. It’s a really interesting process. Even Christian Bale didn’t know exactly what is character was doing in the moment. It was a learning process for everyone, and we just had to jump in and be brave.

For me, his films are about how they make me feel as opposed to some sort of linear narrative. Did you have any premise set up? Obviously, with Hacksaw Ridge there’s a very strong premise. With Knight of Cups was there a story at all or you just ad libbed your character?

My character wasn’t even meant to be in the story. I was just meant to show up for one scene. I came and played this scene in the strip club with Christian Bale and then kept getting phone calls every night saying, “Terry wants you to come back tomorrow. Can you come back tomorrow,” with nothing to read. I just had to come and say whatever I wanted to say in the moment. He kept asking me back, so I was very excited to see what they created out of this character, and out of all these ideas I had popping around in my head.

I wanted to ask you about mindfulness. You’re an ethical person and given what you represent on your website; when you’re choosing projects now, do they have to be in simpatico with what you want to put back into the world, or do you see films as a story and that’s your job?

I’m a lot more aware of the types of films I’m doing, especially as a woman. Some of the films I’ve done in the past were great for me at the time, but they’re not choices I would make these days. I’m looking for really well-rounded characters that live and breathe real. The word and the concept of real for me is something I’m very much attracted to.

But I don’t mind showing darkness and complexity and telling dark stories, because that’s a part of the world. It doesn’t all have to be rainbows and butterflies, but I want characters to feel real, like well-rounded human beings, not just celebrated for their physical appearance, but there’s depth and something to say. Now that I have been doing a lot of work on mindfulness and conscious living, I do recognize I have a platform in which I have opportunity to have a voice. My films also reflect my voice. I’ve been a lot more selective, I would say, in the last year, as to the types of films that I am in, and the types of characters I’m portraying.

There’s an analogy you use in Your Zen Life talk, the introduction to your subscribers when you talk about the “torch”. That torch is pointing forward and illuminating something you want to be part of. It’s a beautiful analogy. I wondered was there a moment in your life where you became mindful or was it a slow burn, where you had an awakening?

I think the first few years in Hollywood were really isolating for me. I was completely confronted to be 21, 22 and be celebrated in a way that meant that there was so much attention on my physical appearance, and it felt really empty. It felt sad and lonely, and it didn’t feel like me. I felt like I was a shell of myself or pretending to be something I truly wasn’t.

That was the slow burn. Then I went through a really traumatic breakup in 2011, and then that was the catalyst for some pretty epic change. It forced me I think  as Michelle Obama says, “When they go low you go high,” it really forced me to find my higher self because I was in such a sad and dark and lonely place.

That’s when I found meditation and mindfulness, and started building from there. My husband had been doing work on that for years and years, so it was an organic partnership. We have each other now as mirrors, and we continue to go deeper within this work because we are together. That’s nice.

Given you shot your Hacksaw Ridge scenes in Sydney, and then, I’m assuming you weren’t there for the battle scenes, how did it feel for you to embody that character and then go and sit in the cinema and see that horrific warfare that went on?

It was really intense. I didn’t see any of that stuff. I had read it in the script but it wasn’t as detailed as what you see on screen. I think I took on a lot of the energy of Rachel Griffith’s character. She is a mother and her sons go off to war, and it was the mother aspect that really ripped me apart. For three days after I saw the film I cried. I was an emotional wreck, thinking about my own son leaving and going to war and having to be faced with that kind of violence and brutality, and the atrocities that happen in war. I was so affected. I was emotionally really affected by it. But I loved it and appreciated that Mel didn’t sugar coat it. I’m so glad he showed the reality of war. I think it’s necessary in telling an authentic story, and it was really beautifully done. And as confronting and brutal as it is, I think it’s necessary.

What’s next for you?

I’m six weeks from having a baby.

Of course, yes! Congratulations!

Thank you very much. That’ll be that. And then I’ll be doing more promotion for this film, and then I’ll start working and filming movies again next year I think. We have a Lights Out sequel at some point, and then I have Kate Shortland’s film coming out, Berlin Syndrome which is an amazing film I’m really excited about. Then I just jump back in. I took this year off. I didn’t do any films this year. I’ve just been promoting them. Next year I’ll be back into the grind, bringing my traveling circus with me, my whole family. It’ll be good. I’m looking forward to it.

Hacksaw Ridge is in cinemas now. You can check out Teresa Palmer’s website Your Zen Life here http://yourzenlife.com