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HUGH STEWARTARTWORK: FLYNN STEWART (PICTURED)
The film, which premieres at the Toronto Film Festival in September,
was shot in New York, Albuquerque and Amsterdam, and despite her
relativelyminor role, Cummings was regularly on set.
“It was my first American job and I got to sit back and observe the
process. I’ve been really lucky to play the leads a lot and there’s a lot of
pressure that comes with that, but withThe Goldfinch,I was just excited
to [watch].” Working on a film with Kidman was a memorable
experience for the 26-year-old, and although the pair didn’t share any
scenes their calls often intersected. “Nicole Kidman is someone I’ve
looked up to since I was very young and I’ve had lots of parallels with
her life – I went to her school [Sydney’s North Sydney Girls High]
briefly, her father was my first-ever psychologist and she’s just such a
phenomenal, magical actress.”
Cummingsis in the middle of an international publicity tour forThe
Goldfinch, the culmination of a particularly busy period shooting the
10-part series NOS4A2 (pronounced ‘Nosferatu’) on Rhode Island,
during which she flew back to Melbourne for just 21 hours for her
scenes in the feature film adaptation of the television series,Miss Fisher
and the Crypt of Tears. So Cummings is relishing being
back in Sydney for a whole 10 days to spend time with
her family and 15-year old poodle.
“As desperate as I was to leave home early on, now I’m
desperate to come back. I get more homesick as I get
older,” she says.
It is an insightful comment from Cummings, who
spent a lot of her youth running away in search of what
ultimately proved to be herself. There is no denying
Cummings had an unconventional childhood, by
Australian standards at least. She was born in the Saudi
Arabian port city of Jeddah to father Mike, a radiologist,
and mother Cheryl, a sonographer. The couple had
travelled to Saudi Arabia in search of adventure and
that’s exactly what they found, each ultimately working
for the country’s king and queen respectively, with the family, including
Cummings’s younger sister and brother, living in a gated community
in Riyadh until she was 12.
It was a lively, stimulating but dangerous experience and the children
were restricted from leaving the compound, except to travel. It was in
Riyadh that Cummings got her first taste for performance, when
a fellow Australian founded a performance group that rehearsed and
performed covertly, given the strict rules of the presiding Sharia law.
“It was a little bubble of bliss and magic, the heartbeat of our time
there in many ways, [because] we were dealing with tough subject
matter – mortality – and were at the centre of a lot of violence with the
so-called War on Terror,” Cummings says.
Not long after her school was bombed, Cummings’s father received
a tip-off that things were about to get dangerously volatile, and two
days later the family left on a ‘holiday’, never to return. “It was a wild
and enriching and colourful time but ended up having a lot of trauma
attached to it and we didn’t really [talk] about it until recently,” says
Cummings, adding she is grateful to her parents for giving her such
a rich start to life.
Assimilating into a new world in a private girls’ school in Sydney’s
north was understandably challenging and Cummings found herself
grappling to make sense of it all. “I’d been dealing with the fact we
could die at any moment, then came here and was in the playground
with friends talking about what brand of ballet shoes they had and
I struggled with that.” She poured her energy into two things:
schoolwork and dancing, spending around 30 hours a week learning
ballet and contemporary dance at Brent Street Academy; or studying.
“It wasn’t sustainable, I put lots of pressure on myself. Then at 14
I decided I was independent and ready to leave.” Pooling the money
she’d earned babysitting, through various dance awards and her first
film role inRazzle Dazzle(2007), Cummings bought a return airfare to
Los Angeles. Her parents were justifiably shocked, but recognising
her mind was made up and given she had Brent Street contacts in the
US,they acquiesced.
“I felt like I was suffocating,” Cummings says. “I think my parents
would have preferred my rebellion to be alcohol and short skirts but
I think they knew it was something I really needed to do for myself.”
For three months she travelled between LA, New York and
Washington and on her return abandoned dance for acting, enrolling in
a one-year diploma of film, which she juggled with
schoolwork. She never returned to live with her parents,
instead boarding at a nearby school which supported
her unconventional routine, one that now included
shooting the film adaptation of John Marsden’s award-
winning book seriesTo m o r ro w,When the War Began.
“I was struggling to figure out where I fitted in and
although I think my parents would have preferred I live
with them, they’ve always supported any decisions I felt
I needed to make, and at that time I felt I needed to live
independently. I’ve always had their love and they’ve
always had mine; I’m so fortunate.”
That film earned her a 2010 AFI nomination for best
young actor and she has never looked back – from
Puberty Bluesto the mini-seriesGallipoliand a regular
role as Dorothy ‘Dot’ Williams onMiss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. She
approached writer-director Ben Young’s scriptHounds of Love(2016)
with a degree of uncertainty given its subject matter, which deals with
a suburban couple who abduct, rape and murder schoolgirls (all
off-screen). What is undoubtedly horrific subject matter was in Young’s
hands a masterful insight into power and vulnerability, with
Cummings’s steely character ultimately outwitting them.
“I definitely struggled emotionally knowing on a literal and
metaphoric level that every day women went through these things.
Every day I’d have to go to the little bay near where I was staying and
wash off, and my boyfriend said I’d often call him crying, but I don’t
remember that.” Her performance earned her the Fedeora best actress
award at the Venice film festival, whileVarietyhailed her acting as
“fearless”. The day after filming wrapped she flew to New Zealand for
the road-trip comedyPork Pie, a remake of the Kiwi classic. It was
a welcome change of pace.
In 2016 Cummings was awarded the coveted Heath Ledger
Scholarship, which included two scholarships, to the Stella Adler
Academy of Acting and Theatre and the Ivana Chubbuck Studio, both
in LA. She has been regularly in demand ever since. “With acting you’re
constantly being challenged by new stimuli and environments.“I’ve been lucky
to play the leads
a lot and there’s
a lot of pressure
with that, but with
The Goldf inch,
I was just excited
to [watch]”