Zoe Tuckwell-Smith plays Rebecca Gilbert
Zoe Tuckwell-Smith has enjoyed acting from a young
age. "I've always been a dreamer - imaginative and creative," she
recalls
.
"As a child I loved putting on plays and making up stories to
perform for my parents or my toys!"
Similar to Bec, Zoe had a close knit group of friends at school
that she still remains close to today. "I had a very eclectic group
of friends - we were kind of like the everymen. I was involved in a
variety of extra curricular activities, including school plays,
sport and music so I got a lot out of school."
After finishing high school, she was accepted into NIDA and
graduated three years later.
Several theatre roles followed as well as guest roles on a number
of TV shows including All Saints, Home and Away, The Cut and The
Strip.
Some of her recent film credits include the lead role of Anja in
the Australian film Primal, which screened in festivals
internationally including the 2010 FrightFest in the UK.
"I've been very fortunate; working away steadily building on and
learning from each job," she says. "I've worked fairly consistently
with moments of quite time in between which is very healthy. It
gives you a sense of what's important in life and takes you away
from the illusory world that is acting and just makes you a more
rounded person."
Zoe's role in Winners & Losers is her first major television
role. "I love that it's about friends," she says. "It has great
pace; the dialogue is witty. It takes you on a journey.
As well as acting, Zoe has worked on the other side of the camera
in a co-production directing and writing a yet to be named and
released documentary filmed in Timor, Indonesia. "We have about 40
hours of footage we're still yet to cut," she says. "We were having
one of those moments of, 'Where's the work? What do we do? We care
about the world.
So we started squireling away and cross referencing ideas that were
dear to us and places we were drawn to. Timor just kept coming
up."
Zoe, who grew up partly in Asia, is fluent in Indonesian.
Originally from Sydney, she's relocated to Melbourne for Winners
& Losers along with her actor boyfriend Damon Gameau.
The pair actually met in Timor while she was shooting her
documentary. "It was his last day shooting Balibo," she says.
"We were both staying at Hotel Turismo and we crossed over for one
night."
In her spare time, she enjoys travelling, spending time with
friends and family and watching films, especially ones featuring
some of her favourite actors - Marion Cotillard, Meryl Streep and
Maggie Gyllenhaal. "I admire Francis O'Connor and Kate Winslet
too," she says. "I also like a lot of directors; people who try
lots of different things."
What would you do if you won the lottery?
I'd help out my family and friends and probably give
a lot of it away to charities or individuals who could make good
use of it. I really trust I'd make money my own way and always have
enough.
