London Academy of Media Film TV

Isla Fisher

Early life

Isla Fisher

Although raised in Perth, Australia, and feels a deep connection with the attitudes and lifestyle of the Australian people, Isla Fisher was born in Muscat, Oman on the 3^rd of February 1976. She is the only girl in a family of four other brothers. Her father was a banker for the United Nations, and her mother a Scottish romance novelist, who would later help Fisher write her two teen novels Bewitched and Seduced by Fame that were met with moderate success. They moved to Perth in Western Australia when Isla was six years old, and attended the Methodist Ladies’ College where she often played the lead in school productions.

Career

Her first taste of acting came through doing commercials at the age of nine before she went on to do the children’s programmes Bay City and the short lived Paradise Beach. She was a regular star on the long running Australian soap Home and Away between 1994 and 1997, even earning a Most Popular Actress Logie.  She then left for Paris where she attended the L’Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq from there she joined a pantomime in the Britian. In 1999 she starred alongside the likes of Keira Knightley and Andy Serkis in the miniseries Oliver Twist, before her first feature film in 2001, the German horror movie Swimming Pool. After the likes of Scooby Doo (2002) and the Australian film The Wannabes (2003), she was finally picked up by an agent in Hollywood, and although dramatic roles came her way it was her partner, now husband, Sacha Baron Cohen who suggested she do comedy, from which she scored a role in the movie Wedding Crashes (2005). She would then co-star in a broad range of films from London (2006), a relationship drama, to the lauded romantic comedy Definitely, Maybe (2008), finally earning a starring role in the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009). She has also managed to pen two scripts, one titled Groupies which was done with Amy Poehler and another the Cookie Queen. She will be doing the voice of Lucy in the up-coming movie Rango with Johnny Depp.

Personal Life

Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen

She met British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in 2002 in Sydney, they would become engaged in 2004 but would not wed until March of 2010 in Paris. This was mainly due to the three years of study Isla Fisher had to do to convert to Judaism. She is nonplussed by the convergence stating that she would move into any religion if it meant the union of marriage with him. She took the Hebrew name Ayala, which means Doe. The couple are intensely private and had a daughter, Olive, in October 2007, which was followed in late 2010 by a second child, of which they have not made public of its sex.  Even their wedding consisted of six close friends and family, of whom some were given very little notice of the impending day.

Charity and Awards

Isla has leant her fame to a many causes. She has been involved in everything from a joint venture between Toys ‘R’ Us and Save the Children, where celebrity mothers were given the chance to design blankets with the auction proceeds going to fund the distribution of blankets across America, to more recently, decorating bras, again to be auctioned, for the Jewish Community Centre in London and the breast cancer charity Cancerkin.

Would you change your faith to be a hollywood star – meet the acting mentors at London Academy

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