<jaime...@cox-internet.com> wrote:
>"The London Times"
>January 25, 2009
>The comic world of Isla Fisher
>The actress and fianc=E9e of Sacha Baron Cohen becomes a comedy star in
>her own right in Confessions of a Shopaholic
>By John Harlow

>When she was a young girl, climbing trees in the wilds of Australia to
>escape a feral pack of brothers who called her Slug Face and worse,
>Isla Fisher dreamt that one day she would live in a big house in the
>Hollywood Hills. Only she thought she would be the maid. Proving that
>in Los Angeles dreams do come true, just rarely in the form expected,
>Isla recently had to face the drama of being mistress of her own glass-
>and-steel Hollywood Hills domain as the stars came calling for her
>western-themed barbecue.

>There is Jennifer Aniston, lurking around the grill without absorbing
>a single calorie (how does she do that?); Ben Stiller and Dustin
>Hoffman playing the fool with neighbourhood kids; Ellen DeGeneres and
>her spouse, Portia de Rossi, fondly demonstrating once again why Hugh
>Grant spluttered into sniggers when asked by a hapless interviewer if
>he was wooing Rossi; and Courteney Cox and David Arquette bemoaning
>property prices.

>And there is Fisher, one half of Hollywood=92s latest power couple,
>dressed down in a red check shirt and faded jeans, introducing guests
>to the star of the show, baby Olive, just one year old. And the daddy,
>Sacha Baron Cohen, in a cowboy hat and red bandanna, a marked shift
>from his other favoured Hollywood party gear, a fully teated cow
>construction (=93It was the only costume left in the shop in extra-
>long,=94 according to a still-amused Isla), or the overexposed and
>overexposing Borat bathing suit, which is =93away in the wash somewhere,
>I think . . . I hope=94.

>It=92s not as if LA is truly home to Fisher. Born in Oman to Scottish
>parents working for the United Nations and raised in Western
>Australia, she always feels somewhere between London and Oz. But she
>has learnt to grasp the moments. And this was a rare moment indeed,
>with Baron Cohen snatching a breath between the guerilla-style filming
>of his latest movie about an outrageously camp fashion fanatic called
>Bruno, and Fisher having wrapped filming in New York of her even more
>colourfully dressed comedy, Confessions of a Shopaholic.

>Now, a few weeks later, nestling into a big sofa at the Four Seasons
>Hotel in Beverly Hills promoting Confessions, her first big comedy
>since she broke through as a flame-haired nymphet in Wedding Crashers,
>Fisher is starting to feel a little more comfortable in the city of
>second-hand angels. =93There are photographers outside the house, but I
>can pull a baseball cap over my hair and slip out without being
>noticed. It=92s not so easy when I am with Him =97 the size difference is
>absurd. My secret =97 and that of most actors in LA, the 98% of them you
>don=92t see in the magazines every week =97 is sticking with a small group
>of friends who I trust, keeping it low-key and not behaving like I do
>in movies.=94

>It=92s fair to say her performance as Becky Bloomwood in Confessions is
>standout comedy. It=92s a knowing, sexy, sassy addressing of what all
>girls know they have in them somewhere, in however great or small a
>measure: a potentially disastrous relationship between their wardrobe,
>their credit card and the shops. Oh, and it has the funniest
>dancefloor turn since John Travolta and Uma Thurman=92s two-fingered
>salute in Pulp Fiction.

>=93These days I am very much a girlie girl,=94 says Fisher, 32. =93I used t=
>o
>be a tomboy, always outdoors. I grew up with a lot of brothers, so
>this is all different for me. Now I have a great group of girlfriends
>and no men in the gang. Don=92t know why =97 I guess they don=92t fit into
>the girlie dinners and teas and going out in a posse.=94

>So what does Isla=92s posse, like, do? She is studying Judaism, better
>to understand her man=92s bloodline, and declares she wants to become a
>mohel, a Jewish man who circumcises babies, and use her religious
>status to scare the wits out of boys. =93So I go out with the girls and
>the knife, and when I am in interviews, I shall just sit there and
>sharpen it . . .=94 She starts howling at the absurdity of her
>escalating comic vision. =93We lurk inside my house waiting for the UPS
>guy, and we all leap on him and . . . no, no, joking.=94

>This is a rare flash of the unguarded Isla, the 5ft 2in fireball who
>exploded from Methodist Ladies=92 College, Perth, to play Shannon Reed
>in the Oz soap Home and Away. This is the caffeinated tabloid queen
>who once told reporters how she used a hapless young thing to lose her
>virginity only to dump him the next day, how she wanted to burn down
>the house of one ex and strangle the pet of another, and who fessed up
>to a fantasy about Mr Bean. =93It was always said with a wink, but that
>wink never came across. So I have had to shut myself up, because I
>have more to protect now. Some subjects are off limits, I=92m afraid,=94
>she says, and for a moment seems genuinely embarrassed.

>Most obviously these subjects include Baron Cohen, whom she namechecks
>only once, as she recalls how they turned tail from a cinema that was
>showing Slumdog Millionaire. =93They only had two seats apart and, as it
>was our seventh anniversary, it didn=92t feel right to sit away from
>each other, so we just walked around in the New York snow.=94

>It was a rare night away from her infant, glimpsed during the
>interview through frequent BlackBerry checks with the babysitter, but
>never named. =93It can be tough because motherhood is one of my most
>favourite things ever,=94 she says. One senses the tension because she
>is a gregarious, full-throated laugher, a woman who loves to
>entertain, maybe even needs to please people around her. There was
>certainly a hunger that drove her to trade Home and Away for acting
>school in Paris (where she qualified as a clown) and took her to
>Hollywood.

>Today, the redhead describes herself as a comic actor, but she never
>had the confidence to commit to full-time laughter-making before she
>hooked up with Baron Cohen. They reportedly met at a party in Sydney,
>and he proposed over milk and cookies in the garden of the Chateau
>Marmont hotel in LA in 2004. And since then her star has been in the
>ascendant, from Wedding Crashers and on to Confessions, the film
>version of the first book in Sophie Kinsella=92s globe-spanning series.

>On the surface, Confessions is just another post-Sex and the City
>=93hooray for girliewood=94 chick flick =97 the story of a young woman
>falling in greedy and debt-ridden thrall to the shop windows of New
>York =97 but it has more bite and magic than that, thanks, in large
>measure, to Fisher=92s performance: part naive, girlie spendaholic, part
>smart and funny prankster, complete with a mean line in slapstick. It
>is also a film about shopping that somehow manages not to feel off-
>key. =93This film was shot in a different world of boom times, but the
>warning about credit-card abuse makes it feel appropriate for now,=94
>she says. =93I shop rarely and poorly, being a working mum, but I learnt
>about the different styles of shopping =97 the compulsive, the trophy-
>hunter. There are people out there who dream of shopping, literally.=94

>The film was costumed by Patrica Field, fresh from Sex and the City.
>=93I went for the big [Sarah Jessica Parker] flower, obviously, but had
>to settle for tottering around on the highest heels I could manage,=94
>says Fisher. =93We did every designer from Todd Oldham and vintage Gucci
>to Prada and Vivienne Westwood =97 God, I love her.=94 Her character=92s
>candy-coloured mixture of pink cupcake dresses matched with dalmatian-
>spotty shawls has become a hot web topic, with opinions ranging from
>=93wondrous=94 to =93why did she skin a Muppet?=94 But Fisher isn=92t worri=
>ed.
>=93It=92s supposed to be over the top =97 a mixture of high fashion and hig=
>h
>street. There is a science and a fashion language here I did not
>appreciate before.=94

>Her own taste runs more to J Brand jeans, Alice + Olivia cashmere and
>=97 a hangover from her clowning days =97 Repetto shoes from Paris, and
>the slimming magic of Spanx. =93I swear that my waist is now skinnier
>than before I was pregnant =97 how do they do that? Certainly it=92s
>nothing to do with me working out. Jerry Bruckheimer [Shopaholic=92s
>mega-successful producer] hired a personal trainer to help me get rid
>of the 60lb I put on during pregnancy. He said I was lucky I was
>blessed with good genes because I had a really bad attitude towards
>exercise =97 like stopping when it hurt or got boring and having a cup
>of tea and a slice of cake. Apparently you are not supposed to do that
>in Hollywood.=94

>Good news: this funny girl shows no sign of stopping when it comes to
>breaking the rules.

>Confessions of a Shopaholic is released nationwide on February 20

>Copyright 2009 "The London Times"

>Jaime