Before you proceed, I want to make sure you aware that this article is not about Margot Robbie, it is about Samara Weaving. It would not be the first time Robbie was mistaken for the Ready or Not actress, who is also a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Australian, which is actually why more people could use a lesson in just who this rising star is.
At 28 years old, Samara Weaving has been making a splash in Hollywood in both film and TV, from a recurring role on the Showtime comedy SMILF, to a small role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and soon she will be appearing as Alex Winter's onscreen daughter in Bill & Ted Face the Music. Yet, Samara Weaving has yet to claim household name status.
Until then, I feel there is still much for audiences to learn about the model and actress who is not Margot Robbie (or Gillian Jacobs). These are five things you ought to know about Samara Weaving.
Samara Weaving Had An Eclectic Upbringing
Samara Weaving was born Adelaide, a city in Southern Australia, on February 23, 1992, to parents Simon Weaving and Helena Bizzina. However, the future actress spent most of her childhood living elsewhere. While promoting the 2017 rage virus horror/workplace comedy movie Mayhem, she told the website Birth. Movies. Death.
I was born in Adelaide, and then we moved to Fiji and Singapore and Indonesia and Italy for a bit, and I didn’t come back to Australia till I was 13 or 14.
That is quite a long time away from home, which must have been what the otherwise exotic and adventurous childhood felt like. That must also be why, as she claimed in a 2012 interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, her favorite place to live was the Australian town of Canberra, which is where her passion for performing began to blossom during her later years in high school.
Samara Weaving Has A Famous Uncle
Samara Weaving was practically born into show business, with her father, Simon, being an acclaimed writer and director of mostly short films. However, she got her start with the help of another family member whom you might recognize: her uncle, Hugo.
Known best for playing Agent Smith in The Matrix trilogy, Elrond in The Lord of the Rings franchise, the title role of V for Vendetta, and providing the voice of Megatron in the Transformers films, actor Hugo Weaving starred alongside his niece Samara in her feature film debut, the 2013 Australian crime drama Mystery Road. Her first realization that she had a famous uncle, however, came years earlier when, at age 13 she was watching the Oscar-winning 1994 drag queen comedy The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and much to her surprise, saw her "Uncle Hugs" in a dress.
Samara Weaving Followed In Other Famous Aussies’ Footsteps With This Soap Opera
As I have mentioned before, Samara Weaving does often get mistaken for her friend Margot Robbie. In addition to their striking resemblance, the common mix-up could also be due to how, around the same time Robbie was starring on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, Weaving started getting noticed from the equally popular long-running Australian drama Home and Away. Coincidentally, she is not the only Aussie who would eventually gain popularity in the States to make a name for herself in her native land with that show.
Prior to Samara Weaving's casting as troubled teen Indi Walker, whom she starred as from 2009-2013, the cast of Home and Away, which is still running after 32 years, featured the likes of Iron Man 3 star Guy Pearce, Wedding Crashers scene-stealer Isla Fisher, future God of Thunder Chris Hemsworth, and the late Oscar-winning actor Heath Ledger. It would be Weaving's first American television role that would be the start of a definitive trend in her career.
Samara Weaving Is A Bonafide Scream Queen
In 2015, Samara Weaving starred in three episodes from the first season of Ash vs. Evil Dead as a Deadite victim whom Ash Williams' (Bruce Campbell) friend Pablo (Ray Santiago) falls for. The following year, she starred opposite Steven Yeun in Mayhem (an exclusive to the all-horror streaming service Shudder) and landed the title role of McG's Netflix original comedic thriller The Babysitter, and then, in 2019, she was cast as the lead in Radio Silence's Ready or Not, which has a healthy amount of both heavy laughs and excessive gore.
It suddenly appeared that Samara Weaving was gaining a reputation as the go-to actress for horror-comedy, despite it being a challenge for her to watch it. Based on her most recent upcoming projects, it appears that she is branching out to more versatile endeavors, such as the action comedy Guns Akimbo, opposite Daniel Radcliffe, crime thriller Last Moment of Clarity, and the G.I. Joe spin-off Snake Eyes, but she will still henceforth be remembered as one of the past decades most prolific scream queens.
Why Samara Weaving Was Afraid She Would Get Fired From Ready Or Not
In Ready or Not, Samara Weaving plays a newly married bride hunted by her murderous in-laws over the course of one nightmarish wedding night. There was one day on set in which the actress got a little too in character and feared it would make the end of her time on set. As she recalled to the Variety-based podcast The Big Ticket,
I hit Andie MacDowell in the face by accident... It was horrible. It was the first day I met her... Everyone freaked out because we didn’t know she was so cool at the time. We were like, ‘Is she going to quit the movie? Is she doing to yell at me. Am I going to be fired? But she was great. She was like, ‘I just need some ice and it’s fine, everyone. Let’s go again.’
Andie MacDowell plays the sinister mother-in-law, whom Samara Weaving accidentally hit in the head. Fortunately, she was nothing like her character and easily forgave her co-star. However, I would not be surprised if she used the moment to inspire her performance during the film's most intense scenes.
She has been a model, a scream queen, and the future of her career is for now unpredictable, but I believe I can safely predict that we will be seeing much more of Samara Weaving as she continues take Hollywood by storm. For more news and updates on this awesome Aussie, be sure to check back here on CinemaBlend.
