It was Christopher Nolan’s producer and wife, Emma Thomas, who suggested he watch Steve McQueen’s Widows and take a look at Elizabeth Debicki. She’d been blown away by her performance as the beleaguered Alice and thought the Australian actor might be right for the female lead in Tenet.
Nolan was impressed, too. But Alice, he said, was “the exact opposite” of what his Tenet heroine Kat needed to be. Kat is an art buyer, the wife of a powerful and controlling billionaire and a kind of regal, enigmatic and Hitchcockian presence. Alice was not.
Debicki, 30, wasn’t aware of any of this at the time, however, and she’s grateful for it. Although some actors might dream of being “offer only,” she actually loves the process of auditioning.
“I like the grit of going in as an actor and proving yourself to these people and earning the thing,” she said. “That exchange to me feels like a good starting-off point.”
A trained dancer who started in the theater, Debicki broke out in a big way playing the sporty Jordan Baker in Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby and has been working non-stop ever since, transitioning seamlessly between massive productions like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to small indies and art house fare.
But she knew Tenet was going to be a different kind of challenge. When she read the script, she remembered thinking “I’m going to have to get really fit,” and she wasn’t just talking about physically. Debicki called it “Nolan stamina,” which she likened to a holistic resilience. —Indian Express
