Isla an Aussie at heart

HER mother and two brothers have emigrated from Australia to live and work in Athens, Greece; her father now lives in Frankfurt, Germany; and she is engaged to an Englishman and spends most of her time in either London or Los Angeles.

But despite the fact that she was born in the Middle East sultanate of Oman and named after a Scottish island, Isla Fisher continues to pine for the place she calls home — Perth, Western Australia.

“I still have a lot of my school friends in Perth and I still obviously feel hugely homesick for WA, but I don’t get the opportunity to go back as much as I’d like to,” says the diminutive redhead who got her big US break opposite Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in Wedding Crashers (2005).

“I like to be in Europe a lot because that’s where my family is and I guess I do live between London and Los Angeles,” she says.

“But definitely my sensibility is Australian and I probably feel that now more than ever. I’m definitely attracted to other Australians; I have a laid-back attitude to life that I feel is very Australian; I love a good barbie.”

Since the beginning of this year Fisher has been seen more often than not on the arm of her fiance, Borat star Sasha Baron Cohen, at events such as the Golden Globe Awards (where he won Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical) and the Oscars.

With her red hair contrasting his dark looks and the fact that he is about 30cm taller, they have been hard to miss. Fisher, 30, is reported to have converted to Judaism for their wedding, which apparently is imminent.

But in Los Angeles last week she politely declined to discuss 35-year-old Baron Cohen other than to confirm that they are “pretty nomadic” and to quip that a height difference “doesn’t generally keep people apart”.

Fisher allows that her personal life “is very important to me and it definitely comes first” but that she and Baron Cohen live “pretty separate” professional lives.

So, while Baron Cohen counts his money from the success of Borat, plays Signor Adolfo Pirelli opposite Johnny Depp in the title role of Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, shooting in London, and prepares to make a potential $30 million bringing another of his TV characters, the Austrian fashion show presenter Bruno, to the big screen, Fisher is about to be seen in another movie and has two more in the can.

In The Lookout she plays former stripper Luvlee Lemons, a humorous name for a character in a very dramatic film.

In a small Kansas town, Luvlee comes into the life of Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a bank caretaker who is being set up by a criminal gang.

Fisher has also completed Akiva Schaffer’s action-comedy Hot Rod, with Ian McShane, Sissy Spacek and Andy Samberg, and Adam Brooks’ romantic comedy Definitely Maybe.