The blonde bombshell everyone is talking about from the sci-fi adventure film “I Am Number Four” is not its flaxen-haired leading man, Alex Pettyfer—surprise, surprise—but instead a scene-stealing beauty named Teresa Palmer.
The 25-year-old from Adelaide, Australia—they seem to grow sexy, talented performers on trees Down Under—has been working in Hollywood for about half a decade. But it wasn’t until her role as Number Six, a super powered alien hiding out on Earth, that her career went into overdrive.
Another stroke of good luck: the long-delayed “Take Me Home Tonight” starring Topher Grace and Ana Faris is finally being released this weekend, right when her name is on Hollywood’s lips.
She can appreciate the good fortune today because a bit of bad luck nearly derailed her career. Palmer had won the female lead in her first American feature film, the action-adventure “Jumper,” when the decision was made to recast with older actors. Her role went to Rachel Bilson instead, and left Palmer deeply discouraged.
She instead debuted to U.S. audiences with a small role in “The Grudge 2” opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar. Other plum parts include “Bedtime Stories” with Adam Sandler (the comedian also cast Palmer’s mother and best friend in cameos), “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” with Nicolas Cage, and “December Boys” opposite Daniel Radcliffe, during which she took the onscreen virginity of the “Harry Potter” star and briefly earned a bit of worldwide notoriety as a result.
Palmer made her professional acting debut at age 18 in the Aussie drama “2:37,” which earned her a Best Lead Actress trophy from the Australian Film Institute. That role led to the film “Restraint” with Stephen Moyer, for which “Screen International” magazine dubbed her a “Star of Tomorrow.”
The actress has joked that “I Am Number Four” was a pleasurable change of pace from such roles as in “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” where she played “a damsel in distress.”
“I think it really opened the doors for me in terms of pursuing a career being an ‘action woman.’ I definitely enjoyed my experiences,” she said to Collider in an interview. “I think that I like to mix things up. This film was an action; the next [is] a little independent Australian filmed called ‘Say Nothing’ and that’s a drama.”
“I just love to switch it up all the time and now that I’ve had the training, I feel like the base is there and I can continue to work on it. You know, fingers crossed, if there’s a sequel to the movie, I can use the work that I’ve done on this film to help me on the next movie and any other action films that come up.”
Trivia note: Palmer had long been rumored to play a part in the “Mad Max” reboot, but with that film temporarily delayed, she has moved on.
CLICK HERE for her interview on Collider.com.
Take Me Home Tonight, official film website: http://www.iamrogue.com/takemehometonight