76 marieclaire.com.au
PHOTOGRAPHY BY TĀNE COFFIN.GIRL OF THE MOMENTSAMARA
WEAVING
Samara Weaving is superstitious – with good
reason. When filming the new Picnic at
Hanging Rock miniseries on location in the
eerie Victorian hinterland, the show’s cast and
crew were struck down with a mystery illness.
“When we shot at the rock itself, everyone got
violently sick. It was almost as if the rock was
telling us it didn’t want us around; really
spooky,” says Weaving of the real-life rock
where a fictional group of schoolgirls
disappeared in Peter Weir’s 1975 film.
In the new series, Weaving plays Irma,
one of the girls who vanishes. When she
returns, Irma’s schoolmates confront her and
demand to know what happened. “That scene
was so fun to film,” Weaving says. “One of my
best friends Ruby Rees [who plays Edith] got
to spit on me. She very much enjoyed it.”
When she’s not getting spat on in
Australia, Weaving, 26, is modelling in the
new Bonds campaign and walking red carpets
in Hollywood, having starred in the multiple
award-winning film Three Billboards Outside
Ebbing, Missouri, and TV series SMILF. In
both, she plays the “ditzy” new girlfriend, but
Weaving insists the characters aren’t clichéd
home wreckers. “What I love most about [those
roles] is that even if the women bicker, they all
get along,” she says. “You’re not just watching
women be cruel to each other. That’s really
refreshing.” No spitting in sight.WATCH IT
Picnic at
Hanging Rock
airs on Foxtel
in May.The Australian actress returns from
Hollywood to star in the reprise of
the iconic Picnic at Hanging RockEDITED BY ALLEY PASCOE