Isabel Lucas

Lord Wiki says that Isabel Lucas was a Home and Away star. That's cool. I like learning about soap opera people.

Baby Isabel was born in Melbourne, on 29 January 1985. It looks like the family moved around a bit. They lived in Cairns, the Northern Territory, and also Switzerland. Lucas' mom is Swiss, so that's probably how they ended up there.

Lucas is trilingual. She can speak English, French, and German. I wish I could speak more languages. I should probably work on that, instead of just wishing. I do know a little Spanish. Maybe that's what I should work on, because my sister is trying to make her son bilingual. They're teaching him Spanish along with English. So I could practice with him. I had wanted to learn an Aboriginal language, but there are so many of them. I wouldn't know which one to choose.

For at least part of her schooling, Lucas went to Saint Monica's College in Cairns. I wonder when she lived in the Northern Territory and Switzerland. How long did she live there?

I'm going to get most of the career stuff from IMDb, but I want to mention one little fun piece of trivia. Lucas auditioned for the role of Kit Hunter on Home and Away. She didn't get the role, because the producer didn't feel she was right for the part. But then the producer created a role just for her. That's pretty awesome.

In 2008, Lucas was in a small car accident, and had a minor head injury. She had been riding with her co-star of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Shia LaBeouf was arrested for a DUI. I hope he was rightfully ashamed of himself.

Lucas has been involved with whale protests. It involved trespassing in Japan, and Lord Wiki says Japan still has a warrant out for her arrest. Yikes.

Lucas is a vegetarian. That's good. I think it's a little hypocritical when people protest against whale hunting and then go enjoy a hamburger.

This probably won't be on IMDb, so I'll mention it before I go there. Lucas was in a Crest commercial. The video is on YouTube. And she did a tourism commercial for Victoria. I personally don't get commercial.  Are they trying to sell Victoria, or Isabel Lucas? What's the point? Are we supposed to imagine we'll be that beautiful if we go to Victoria? Or maybe the idea is we'll see people that beautiful if we go to Victoria. I personally don't want to see anyone that beautiful. Overly beautiful people make me feel ugly.

Even though Lucas is making me feel all ugly, I am still liking her. Why? She has a short filmography. I was hoping for a short filmography today. Yesterday's was SO long.

Lucas started working on Home and Away in 2003. She would have been about eighteen then.

Lucas was on the show from 2003-2006, appearing in 231 episodes. In 2004, she won a Logie for most popular new female talent.

On Home and Away, Lucas played Tasha Andrews. Lord Wiki has a little information about her, and she sounds like an interesting character. First of all, she was raised by isolationists who believed the world was ending. They died, and I'm guessing this is when her character entered Home and Away land.

Tasha dated a guy named Robbie, but things went sour for them when she joined a cult. She got raped, and became pregnant. I guess then she and Robbie got back together, and Robbie took on the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Here we go. This Home and Away website has a whole biography about Tasha.

In her first appearance on the show, a guy named Max found her walking along some rocks. Isabel got scared when she saw him, and jumped into the water. A few days later, he saw her again. This time he chased her. She fell, and hurt her ankle. Max took her to the hospital.

At the hospital, no one could communicate with Tasha They couldn't figure out which language she spoke. Then they realized it was Pig Latin. Okay. I want to say that's really silly, but what do I know? Maybe people in her situation do end up speaking Pig Latin. Have there been isolationist families that talk to each other with that?

Tasha didn't feel comfortable with most people. But she was somewhat okay with a woman named Irene Roberts. So Irene took Tasha home.

I'm a little confused here. They say some guy named Kane lived in the beach house. Tasha was scared of him. If I'm reading this right, he had earlier held her hostage at a petrol station. Yikes.

Tasha continued to have a rough time. She was a bit of a wild child. But slowly she learned English, and started to fit into Home and Away life.

The next storylines with Tasha involved her finding out who her biological mother was. The isolationists had been her adoptive parents. There was a lot of secrecy, and that bothered Tasha. She decided she couldn't trust Irene. She ran away to live in the bush.

A guy named Robbie tried to catch Tasha with a trap. Instead he got himself caught in the trap, and he got bitten by a snake. Tasha had to rescue him, and this involved returning to civilization. She decided she might forgive Irene, and stay.

Tasha and Robbie became friends. Later they kissed.

There was then storylines about Tasha trying to find the identity of her father. This involved Tasha being blackmailed, and finding a gun. The gun was later used to shoot a guy, and Tasha ended up feeling guilty.

Some of these storylines seem so out there. In one, Robbie stepped on a needle on a camping trip. I guess it had some drug in it? He started acting all crazy. Tasha broke up with him. But later they got back together.

It seems stepping on needles IS something that happens. Getting drugged though might not be the biggest threat. There's a chance of contracting HIV or Hepatitis. Scary.

Could you be drugged by stepping on a needle though? Doesn't it need to go through a vein?

I don't know much about all that.

Tasha joined the Believers. Robbie wasn't happy with that.

Some guy in the Believers (Jonah) believed that Tasha was the chosen one. Then Tasha was raped. She believed Jonah was the rapist but later it was revealed he was sterile.

Tasha had the baby but wouldn't bond with her. Robbie did the bonding despite the child not being his. He then helped Tasha to bond with the baby. That's sweet.

The family all loved each other. Things were going well. But then the cult returned to kidnap the baby. They thought she was the chosen one. Along with this, it was discovered that Robbie was guilty of turning off his grandpa's life support machine. Tasha and Robbie dealt with this; and then they ran off to America. That's how they exited the show.

Now I shall watch some Tasha scenes.

Here's Tasha and Robbie being loving and supportive towards each other. Robbie is doing homework. Tasha is dealing with morning sickness.

Here's a fan video about Tasha. Maybe it will give me a nice overview.

I think it's mostly about her mother. Did her mother die before Tasha was able to meet her?

Okay. Yeah. I just read some of her mother's biography. I missed that earlier. People in town were able to figure out that she was Angie Russel's daughter. I assumed Angie Russel was still alive, which was kind of dumb of me. No emotional reunion or rejection had been mentioned.

Here's Tasha and Robbie's first kiss. I'm not an expert on these things, but it looks like Tasha's hair is dyed. I see some dark underneath, and her eyebrows are very dark. Can people naturally have blond hair, and dark eyebrows?

Well, the commenters on this blog say they have blond hair and dark eyebrows. I didn't know that was possible. So I've learned something new today. Okay then. I was going to say since Tasha is supposed to be all wild and natural. She wouldn't seem like the type to dye her hair.

Here's another Tasha and Robbie fan video. Robbie looks like a superheroes' alter ego. I'm guessing the woman at :47 is part of the cult.

The infamous needle scene is at :56. Now I'm going to get all paranoid about walking barefoot outside.

Lucas is so beautiful at 1:44. I don't have a crush on her yet. I need time for people to grow on me.

At 2:11, Lucas reminds me of Sammy Brady. I don't know. Maybe it's the way she walks?

I'm going to go get dressed so we can go out and buy some groceries. Then I'll come back and read more about Lucas' career.

I'm back. We bought Tim Tams....and other stuff. I'm just mentioning the Tim Tams since this is a blog about Australian stuff.

Lucas' filmography is quiet from 2006-2009. I wonder what she was doing. Maybe uni? Theatre? Rehab? What do actors do in their time off?

In 2009, Lucas was the transformers movie. I think it was a sequel. I've never seen any of the movies. Jack had shown brief interest in the toys, so Tim bought him one. It was so damn complicated. I always thought those toys had a easy transformation, but it's like a puzzle.

Hugo Weaving's voice was in the movie. I'm sure it's one of those things I learned, and then forgot.

The trivia page says that LaBeouf suffered hand injuries from the car crash. I'm trying to be sympathetic, but all I can think is that it could have been worse. I hope he learned his lesson and never drinks and drives again.

Here's the trailer. That darkness at :37 is weird. I guess it's supposed to be like that, but it almost feels like an editing mistake.

That thing at 1:35 is cool. The trivia page said that Steven Spielberg was incredibly impressed with something he had seen in the trailer. Maybe that's it. But Spielberg and I might not have the same taste in monster machine things. He might have been impressed with something different.

I don't think I saw Lucas in the trailer. Did you? Maybe I missed it.

Here's a behind the scenes video. The quality isn't so great. I can't tell exactly what's going on.

I don't even think Lucas was in that video. Oh well.

Let me try something else.

I can't find Lucas acting in the movie. But here she is at the premiere. She still has an Australian accent. That's good.

Next on the list we have an Australian-American vampire movie; Daybreakers. It's written and directed by twin brothers.

There are so many vampire stories out now with similar premises. It makes me wonder. Are people copying each other? Or is this a mythology that we're needing right now, so various authors are channeling it? What is the deal?

Daybreakers has strong similarities to True Blood. The premise of True Blood (based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels) is that a Japanese company has created synthetic blood. Vampires no longer have to use or kill humans. Since humans don't need to fear vampires as much, the vampires come out of the closet.

Daybreakers is not exactly that, but synthetic blood is part of the story. In this movie (from what I'm reading) there is a vampire plague. Almost everyone turns into vampires, leaving only 5% of the population as humans. Therefore, there's not enough food to go around. There's rationing, and crazed hungry vampires. Then one vampire tries to invent synthetic blood.

The movie was filmed in Queensland.

I'm looking at the cast....seeing who I recognize.

Ethan Hawke plays Edward Dalton. Yes, let's make sure we have an Edward in our vampire story.

Sam Neil is in it. I like him.

There's William Dafoe as well. Oh, and Isabel Lucas is in it...of course.

Which guy plays the vampire hero?

Okay. That's Ethan Hawke.

Here's the trailer. I got so into it, I forgot I was supposed to look for Lucas. But there she is at 1:42.

The story also deals with curing the vampires. Hawke's character wants to cure the vampires. Sam Neil is against that. And I think William Dafoe is a vampire hunter. I'm not sure what Lucas is supposed to be, but I think she's probably human.

This film website has an article about the movie. It's interesting to me. If you haven't noticed, I'm kind of into this movie. Two of my favorite subjects are vampires and Australia. Now I have them combined.

The movie is big budget, and these are not often made in Australia.

The article explains why it's an American AND Australian movie. They got financial backing from Lionsgate, an American studio. Although Lord Wiki says Lionsgate was originally Canadian. These days it's in Santa Monica.

Anyway, so they bring in American money, but they use Australian crews and all that. One of the the directors says, Our goal is to get big American money and make films here, using local crews and as many local actors as possible.


One of the producers (Chris Brown) is interviewed for the article. He says he wants to start a trend of big budget movies in Australia. Brown says he likes the low budget Aussie films, but thinks there's room for both types of movies. I agree.

I think they make good points in this article. Some people are against commercial films. Films should be very artistic and meaningful. The Spierig Brothers (the writer-directors) say that other types of art are very low-cost. It doesn't cost much to paint a picture, or record a song. The problem with film is it's very costly. You need to recoup that money so you can make more movies. I think this is kind of what I was talking about when I wrote about Adam Elliot. If I recall, he was very much against selling out. He didn't want to do commercial films. Yet, I think he was struggling somewhat financially. In my opinion, the best thing to do is sell out....partly. Then with that money, you do the stuff which is close to your heart. I think a lot of actors do this. They do over-the-top commercial stuff, and get paid a ton of money. Then they'll do some quiet independent films.

What I'm getting is that there's two schools of thought when it comes to Australian film. One wants to avoid the big commercial blockbusters, and the other one thinks having these movies will benefit the industry. I agree with the latter. The thing I'd like to see though is big budget Australian films with more Australian characters....or ones that actually take place in Australia. I think Americans are severely lacking in awareness of Australia. I think Australia can change that. The Australian movies that Americans end up seeing are either very art-house, and many Americans stay away from these movies. OR they're extremely stereotypical....you know stuff like Australia and Crocodile Dundee.

I think it would be great to have big budget movies that have some Australian characters. Maybe it will break down some stereotypes that Americans have. And MAYBE Americans will end their mysterious aversion to Australian accents. I mean obviously we must have this affliction, seeing that all the TV studios insist their actors speak American. So anyway, Americans will start accepting Aussie accents, and there will be less Australians changing their accents for American TV.

Now I don't know about Daybreakers. Are there Australian accents in it? I didn't notice. Let me go watch the trailer again.

Sam Neil is speaking American.

Around :48-49 sounds a little less American. Is that Sam Neil?

Lucas sounds pretty much American...maybe a touch of an Aussie accent.

It sounds pretty much American too me. That's disappointing.

For the rest of the article, the Spierig brothers are trying to defend themselves against the idea that they're trying to jump on the Twilight Bandwagon. They want to make sure people understand that they've made something DIFFERENT. It's funny because that's how Stephanie Meyers (the Twilight creator) acted. I've seen interviews with her where she claimed to not read/watch vampire stories. Supposedly, it's just a coincidence that her stories have so much in common with the Sookie Stackhouse stories.

Anyway, one of the Spierig brother says he saw an Edward vampire t-shirt when they were making the film. He wondered how people knew about their film already. He hadn't known about Twilight. Do people not research the market before they start working on their own projects?

As for the t-shirt story, Jorge Garcia had a similar one on his blog recently. I just saw that Garcia also has a very valuable entry on how to eat a cupcake. It looks a bit complicated, but if you get it to work, it's like a cupcake sandwich thing. I'll have to try it. Cupcakes bother me because I end up eating the frosting, and am left with dry cake. I prefer to eat a cake slice with a fork. That way you get the cake AND the frosting together. Yum. The Garcia method might be a good alternative though.

I should probably get back to talking about Isabel Lucas at some point.

Lord Wiki explains who her character is in Daybreakers. She's Sam Neil's daughter. He forces her to become a vampire. What a mean daddy.

The other movie that Lucas did in 2009 was The Waiting City. It's an Australian movie about international adoption. A couple travels to India to get their child.

This Indian newspaper has an interview with Lucas regarding the movie.

Lucas says one of the reasons she accepted the role in the film was it gave her an opportunity to travel to India. She had wanted to go there. I think one of the best parts about being in the film industry would be the traveling.

Lucas' character in the film is not part of the adopting couple. I'm not sure who she is exactly, but the story involves some marriage difficulties. I wonder if she's part of the cause? Maybe she hits on the husband? I could be totally wrong here.

Lucas has four upcoming films. Two are Australian, and two are American.

The Immortals is about Greek Gods.
  Lucas is going to play Athena. That's one of the American movies. The other one is Red Dawn, a remake of a 1984 movie. I have vague memories of that. Lord Wiki says the original movie was about a Russian invasion. This new one is about a Chinese invasion.

Lucas has the same role that Lea Thompson had in the old movie.

I have a feeling this movie is going to be somewhat offensive. I don't know. I know war villains have to be from somewhere. And I'm not into rewriting history to make a certain group look innocent. If a group actually DID something bad in the past, I think it's fine to make a movie about it. But I don't think I support pinpointing a culture as an imagined villain. How is that going to feel for people who are Chinese? Can you imagine being a Chinese college student, and all your friends are going out to see the movie. Do you go with them? Opt out? I'd feel weird if all my friends were going to see a movie in which Jews take over the country.

I think John Marsden made the right choice in not naming the invaders in the Tomorrow series. It did make me horribly curious. I'll admit that. But I think it's the least hurtful thing to do.

The other choice that works well is to turn it science fiction....make the invaders extraterrestrial.

As for the Australian movies that Lucas will be in....

One is a musical-comedy called A Heartbeat Away. The Playlist blog has information about it. The story is about an aspiring guitarist.

The other movie is Kin. I can't find much about it, except that Josh Lawson is one of the other stars.

Now I'll watch some interviews. First, I'll do Rove.

Wait. I guess I missed something. I skipped it, because it was just one episode of a TV show, and I didn't think it was that important. But Rove just mentioned it, so maybe it is.

Lucas was in an episode of The Pacific. This is another example of an Australian-American production. It's a World War II miniseries that is filmed in Australia. It's funded by American companies such as Dreamworks and HBO, but also funded by the Seven Network.

The episode that Lucas is in actually takes place in Melbourne. So it's not just filmed there. It's set there as well.

One of the stars of the film is Joseph Mazzello. He's the kid from Jurassic Park. It's nice to know his career is going strong.

I'm going to continue watching the Rove interview.

Lucas looks way too thin to me. This is good. Maybe I'm getting over my attraction to thinness. I'm back to liking voluptuous bodies.

Lucas reminds me a little of Kristen Stewart at 2:09. I can't really explain why.

In the beginning of the interview, Lucas was too...something. Doll like? Surreal? It was like she was trying to look angelic. I don't know. But then she becomes somewhat more....I'm not sure which word to use. Maybe I should just say tolerable. Yeah. I guess that it's it. She slowly changes into something that I'm more able to tolerate.

I sound like such a snob. Sorry.

Lucas is just too pretty for me. And I'm probably just jealous. But she's beautiful in a model like way, rather than a real person way. That's silly, of course. Models ARE real people. What am I trying to say?

I don't know.

I'll just shut up and listen.

Lucas seems overly serious. Maybe she's just nervous. I say that because I know I may come across weird or too serious when I talk to people. I keep going over conversations I've had with people recently. I worry I was too serious, didn't catch jokes in time, bragged too much, didn't show enough empathy, etc. I'm much better at writing than I am talking. Maybe Lucas is this way too. Some of us are just NOT good at vocal interactions....especially when put on the spot.

Lucas has said something that makes her a little more endearing to me. She doesn't like high heals, and she's a klutz. We have that in common. I'm horrible with high heals.

Now she's asking those quick questions. Her favorite Australian saying is Bob's your uncle. She also likes chip off the old block. We have that in America too. I wonder where it originated.

Lucas says she WOULD pose naked for charity; in fact, she'd do anything for charity. Wow.

Rove asks if a whale attacked her, would Lucas still want people to save them. They all laugh about this. Lucas says whales wouldn't attack a human. Uh...what about that trainer at Sea World. Do Killer Whales not count? Wait. Are they really whales, or are they dolphins?

Lord Wiki says that they're dolphins. Okay.

Still. Either way. I wouldn't respect an activist who stopped wanting to save an animal because he or she was attacked.

I'm going to watch one more interview before quitting. It's about the whale protest. She has brown hair in this interview. I think she looks much better as a brunette.

The arrest warrant from Japan is about interfering with commerce. If she returns to Japan, she could get arrested.

The interviewer says that the Japanese claim the whaling is about traditional culture. Lucas doesn't believe that. She thinks it's about making money. She also says polls show most Japanese people are against the whaling.

This anti-whaling website says that a poll in 2006 showed that 95% of Japanese people never or rarely eat whale meat. And 70% of them did not support whaling.

Yikes. What I'm reading here is pretty disturbing. They say that Japan tries to get countries to vote in support of them by promising financial aid if the countries vote the "right" way.

Anyway, that's a complicated subject.

I'm going to leave it at that for now, and go do some laundry.

I'd love to hear YOUR opinion. I'd especially love to hear from nonvegetarians who are very passionate about anti-whaling. What is your take on all of it?

If you're a vegetarian and anti-whaling, what do you personally feel is worse...whaling or factory farming?

Anyone out there pro-whaling? Have any of you eaten a whale? How did it taste?

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