So, nepotism doesn’t rule Hollywood after all — at least not when it comes to Isla Fisher‘s career. The Now You See Me actress is British Cosmopolitan‘s July cover girl, and in the issue, she opens up about how she rose to stardom with absolutely no help from her already-famous love Sacha Baron Cohen.
“I really have had no help. In fact, the one time I did ask for help was after my agent in L.A. fired me. I was auditioning for all sorts of things but kept getting told ‘no,’ so she just fired me!” Fisher, 37, tells the magazine. “So anyway, I said to Sacha, who was my boyfriend at the time, ‘Can you ask your agent if they’ll represent me?’ And his agent said, ‘No way.’ It was the only favor I’d ever asked, and I was like, ‘OK… great.’ But it spurred me on.”
Fisher, who’s now married to Cohen and has two daughters with him (Olive, 5, and Elula, 2), has developed a Zen attitude about rejection. “I’ve had no helping hand in Hollywood. But in general I’ve found that when it comes to getting jobs, what’s meant for you can’t pass you by,” The Great Gatsby actress says.
But now that her star is on the rise, will she help others? “Women one hundred percent support each other in the movie industry. I auditioned for a movie recently and when I went in, the producer said he’d told one of its stars, Naomi Watts, that he was auditioning me and she’d said, ‘She’s so funny, she’s a great actress — you should hire her.’ What a lovely, kind and supportive thing to do for another woman,” Fisher says.
And it’s not just her Hollywood peers she’d like to help. The Scottish-born, Australian-raised beauty also lends a hand to fellow mommy friends. “I have an open-house policy and a lot of my friends who don’t have access to childcare drop their kids with me,” she says. “You’ll often find me in the playroom, surrounded!”
Leaning on others is essential for anyone, but particularly for working mothers, she suggests. “It’s a myth that you can have it all. You can’t,” she tells the mag. “But, more importantly, I don’t think you should want to. It sounds exhausting! I’m just dipping my toe back into work now. It’s a juggling act and I’m not particularly good at it; the balls are in the air. But my priority is always my family. Motherhood boils everything down to the essentials.”
The full interview appears in the July issue of British Cosmopolitan, on sale June 4. It is also available on Apple Newsstand. Behind the scenes footage from the cover shoot can be viewed here.
