From Her Directing Debut to Her American Acting Debut, It’s a Time of Firsts for Tilda Cobham-Hervey

Australian actress Tilda Cobham-Hervey was just a teenager when she made her feature debut in the indie “52 Tuesdays,” which screened at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. The film landed her an American agent, and she continued to work steadily in Australian film and television, including last year’s “Hotel Mumbai,” opposite Armie Hammer and Dev Patel.

Now the 24-year-old is making her American feature debut in “Burn,” playing Melinda, a lonely night-shift gas-station attendant who finds herself in the middle a heist-gone-wrong after a desperate man (Josh Hutcherson) decides to rob it. Suki Waterhouse, Harry Shum Jr. and Shiloh Fernandez co-star. The film marks the directorial debut of USC film grad Mike Gan. “Burn” was released August 23rd in theaters and On Demand. 

Cobham-Hervey spoke to Casting Networks about working on her first American project and how being on the other side of the camera helped her feel more at ease during auditions.

How does an Australian get to make her American feature film debut?

I had recently moved to LA and began spending time there. That really made a huge difference. When I read the script, I was fascinated by the character of Melinda. It was a really unusual story, and the way it was written—I never knew what was going to happen next. I met with the director, Mike Gan, and we got along great. I loved his vision for it and the things he was talking about in terms of his creative process. I was lucky with this one because I didn’t have to audition for it. Mike had seen my other work and offered me the role. I was lucky.

You had several firsts on this project, didn’t you?

“Burn” was exciting because it was my first job in an American film, with an American accent, and that was something I was keen to prove to myself to do. I did a lot of walking around in LA and talking to myself in an American accent before we started. I loved getting to try that out. Also, the film takes place over the course of one night, and the film was all night shoots, which I had never done before either. Plus, we were in Poughkeepsie in upstate New York, and it was freezing!

Soon, you’ll star in what could arguably be your most prominent role: playing Australian singer Helen Reddy in the biopic “I Am Woman,” which will make its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

That was an extraordinary experience. When I first met director Unjoo Moon, who is Australian, she already knew some of my work. But this was going to be a big budget film about a woman whom everybody knows. They were looking for a big name, which I am not. She and I had a meeting, and I was very passionate about the story. Helen and I had similar upbringings and maybe looked a bit similar. The meeting lasted about four hours.

What was your audition like?

I had to go in and do a singing audition in the studio. I was like, “Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do? I’m not a singer!” I remember I’d just gotten off a plane, totally jetlagged, and went into this studio and sang some of Helen Reddy’s songs. I tried to encapsulate her performance style. They wanted to see how I fit within that world. After they called and said I had the job.

Yet you don’t actually sing in the film …

There’s a lot of singing in the film, but they’re not using my voice. It was important the songs sounded as much like Helen’s voice as possible. I’m absolutely not a singer, nor am I even trained in signing, so it had to be done by someone who does that professionally and well.

You’ve been acting professionally for almost 10 years now. How do you find the audition process?

I don’t think it’s easy. I think it’s a very hard and a very strange process. There are aspects of it I really enjoy. I didn’t go to drama school, and I never think I’m ever going to get any job, so I always go into the audition room or the self-tape just excited to have a crack at it, to learn and to push myself to try new things. I think it’s a great place to play.

What about the self-tape process?

It’s always good when you have friends who can be there to push you to try different stuff. But I still find it very scary. It’s always much harder when you want the job, when you’re desperate for it, because that feeling is never helpful. But I think I’m learning a lot more in trusting that the right project will come.

Is that because you recently found yourself on the other side of the camera? In 2017, you wrote and directed a short called “A Field Guide to Being a 12-Year-Old Girl.” It was part documentary and part performance piece, and you had to cast many young girls.

It was so hard being on the other side of it. I had to make sure we had a diverse group of girls. There were some girls who were beautiful, but I had a different image in my mind for the part. It taught me you can be a brilliant actor, doing a brilliant performance, but it’s not always just about that. It’s about what the director has in mind. Often times, that’s more than just that one performance. It made me relax a lot more about auditioning as an actor. It’s out of my control, so I try to take in the experience of the audition, and trust that process.

 
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