I was lucky enough to steal some of Phoebe Tonkin's time recently, and (1) she is an absolute blast, and (2) she told me all sorts of things: How similar she is to Faye; the difficulty in maintaining a "normal" American accent around co-workers (and native Southerners) Shelley Hennig and Britt Robertson; plus what exactly she's listening to when she tweets about putting on Radiohead. Important journalism, basically!


I have to say, it's so weird hearing 당신 use your real accent. This is the first time I've really heard 당신 speaking in your native tongue.

[Laughs] Really? And I've just been Skyping with my sister so I'm probably sounding really Australian. When I talk to my family my accent gets really thick.

When it comes to personality, how much of Phoebe Tonkin is in Faye Chamberlain and how much Faye Chamberlain is in Phoebe Tonkin?

I was actually thinking about this the other day. Some of the impulsive, giggly stuff is me. Like, I like to shock the rest of the cast. Sometimes I'll just randomly start laughing at them, especially at Shelley's character. I feel like that's something that Faye would do, but it's also something that Phoebe would do. I was never that kind of girl at school, but I definitely knew girls at school that were very poised and they spoke their minds whereas I'm a bit 더 많이 quiet and awkward. So I incorporate parts of myself and parts of people that I knew at 집 and it all kind of ends up in this Faye Chamberlain situation. Also parts of other shows and movies, like Cruel Intentions and that kind of thing. I like to pool all my 가장 좋아하는 teenage films and put them into this one character.

That makes sense, because as a character she's kind of all over the place. She's an antagonist, she's a friend, she's a crazy person, she's a voice of reason, she's the comic relief. Are 당신 constantly just opening the script and finding yourself surprised 의해 how she's behaving each week?

Totally. I mean some of the lines that she says—In the most ridiculous situations, like life-threatening situations, she always has some little sarcastic comment. And I 사랑 that the other characters look at her like, "Why are 당신 joking right now? We're about to die." But Faye's like, "Wait, I've got one 더 많이 chance for a smart-ass 코멘트 here before we die."

You really cracked me up in last week's episode. It seems like 당신 have a real ease with comedy, but I'm seeing mostly drama on your resumé. Is comedy something 당신 want to get into more?

I mean yeah, definitely. I have so much fun, as I said, doing 더 많이 impulsive things. I'm so lucky I get to play a character that allows for that and maybe other stuff that isn't necessarily written on the page, like twisting lines and things. But I 사랑 doing comedy and I 사랑 watching comedy... I'm 더 많이 inclined to go watch a Seth Rogen film than a serious Oscar drama.

Confirm 또는 deny: In Australia you're so famous that 당신 can't leave the house.

Okay, DENY. 당신 wrote that, and I was like, "A. That's not true. B. You're very sweet," but no, it's not true. At all. No one knows who I am in Australia. They don't even know I AM Australian, because The Secret 원, 동그라미 is on in Australia and I'm sure everyone's like, "Oh, she's American. She's from, like, North Carolina." Like nobody knows me in Australia, I'm just telling you.

I don't know if I believe that. I have this impression that H2O: Just Add Water is basically the Breaking Bad of Australia.

[Laughs] If you're five years old, maybe. I mean, that show has a following with kids, but that's kind of an old—We finished that three years ago, but it's just that it keeps getting repeated. I started that when I was 15 and I'm 22 now. So I guess the following is a belated following.