She’s gorgeous, talented, successful and what every Hollywood actress wishes she was: young.

But the Australian star of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Teresa Palmer, says being 24 years old in Tinseltown isn’t as easy as it might sound.

“It’s a weird age to be in Hollywood. I feel like I’m falling between the cracks a little bit,” Palmer said.

“I’m too old to be playing high school, but I’m too young to be playing opposite Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio.

“There aren’t a lot of movie star males around my age that I can play opposite. I can only think of Shia LaBeouf. I’m maybe a little old for Zac Efron.”

In I Am Number Four, an action sci-fi she just finished shooting, Palmer says she felt so self-conscious playing a teenager she asked for her character to be older.

“I felt so silly playing a 17-year-old … we ended up aging her up to 22,” she says.

Palmer concedes that Hollywood isn’t easy for any actress at any age, but she still thinks if she was either older or younger she’d be working more.

“I’m still only doing about one film a year and I’d love to be doing film, film, film, film, film,” she says.

It’s hard to imagine that Palmer thinks she isn’t working hard enough.

In a short career, the Adelaide actress has already starred with Daniel (Harry Potter) Radcliffe as every teen boy’s dream in December Boys, Sarah Michelle Gellar as an American brat in The Grudge 2, Adam Sandler as a fair maiden in Bedtime Stories and now Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel in magical adventure film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

In the soon-to-be released Kids in America, she plays the beauty Topher Grace’s character lusts after and in I Am Number Four, she plays a “tough alien chick in head-to-toe black leather who rides a Ducati motorbike and kicks butt”.

Earlier in August she confirmed she would be acting opposite Joel Edgerton, the brother of her rumoured boyfriend Nash, in the Australian thriller Say Nothing and she’s lined up to star in friend Gracie Otto’s first writer/director project Rue De Tournon, filming in Sydney and France next year.

A part in Mad Max: Fury Road was ruled out because of scheduling conflicts, but she’s still in the running to co-star in the latest Hollywood incarnation of Spiderman.

She may like to be working even more, but just being this busy is “a good problem to have”, laughs Palmer.

It’s not been a deliberate move to pick such varied roles, but the young actress hopes it is a sign of things to come.

“It is what I want to be doing for the rest of my career – just mixing it up and not staying within my comfort zone. I love to challenge myself,” she says.

In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Palmer says she really enjoyed that her role as the beautiful love interest was turned on it’s head.

“I play the girl next door – a damsel in distress who turns into the hero,” she laughs.

“I like that.”

Perhaps not hard to do when the hero is meant to be geeky-looking Baruchel.

“Go the nerds!” Palmer says.

“The love story is very endearing. It’s an unexpected romance because he’s the nerdy boy and she’s the cool muso chick and they’re, sort of, an unlikely pairing, but they work really well together.

“The nerds are my favourite sort of boys – any guy with a passion – whether it be physics or film or writing or poetry even, I think it’s super sweet and it’s very attractive for a female.”

Working alongside Cage was a revelation as well, she says.

“He’s very complex and he’s eccentric and interesting and he has very quirky stories and he is a goofball,” says Palmer, who seems to have picked up some US slang, but whose accent is still definitely Aussie.

“I grew up watching his films and he’s wonderful. I’m very pleasantly surprised that he’s such a good person.”

She may have worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but Palmer says it is her family who keep her head out of the clouds and feet firmly on the ground.

“The way I was brought up by them really helped me have the confidence to leave little old Adelaide, South Australia, and make the move over to Hollywood,” she says.

“It helped me realise that yes, I’m an actor and that’s very exciting and all, but it doesn’t define who I am at all.

“I’m not saving lives.”

That humility and ability to poke fun at herself might be the key to her success in Hollywood so far, she says.

“I definitely try not to take myself too seriously and maybe that helps win over the directors in the audition rooms,” Palmer says.

“I think that Americans find the Australian humour and the energy of Australians very refreshing – we are quite self-deprecating, we’re light-hearted and can have a laugh.”

Teresa attended Jurlique’s 25th Anniversary yesterday for an intimate breakfast at a private residence in Woollahra to pay homage to the Australian natural skincare brand. Star celebrity on hand to help the Aussie brand celebrate was Teresa Palmer, wearing Camilla & Marc frock, she has been using Jurlique for many years and is a strong supporter of the brand.

Teresa is featured inside the US InStyle Magazine for August 2010 issue photographed by Lee Broomfield and styled by Kusum Lynn. Check out the images in the gallery…

Teresa Palmer is one of the front-runners to play Peter Parker’s love interest in director Marc Webb’s “Spider-Man” (the nre reboot), according to Heat Vision.

No official word on whether the role that Palmer – and several other actresses, including Emma Roberts (“Scream 4″) and Imogen Poots (the upcoming “Fright Night”) – is vying for is that of flaxen-haired Mary Jane Watson or blond beauty Gwen Stacey, but considering the hair-colour (not that that mean’s much in the way of “Spider-Man” – both Kirsten Dunst and Bryce Dallas Howard dyed their hair to play Mary Jane Watson and Gwen Stacey, respectively, in the previous “Spider-Man” films) and rampant hearsay, it’s Stacey.

Palmer, currently filming “I Am Number Four” with Sharlto Copley, read with “Spider-Man” star Andrew Garfield a few weeks ago.

With the Adelaide-raised actress in contention for this flick, she definitely (she’s been rumoured to be off for a few weeks now) can’t be involved in “Mad Max Fury Road” anymore – which will shoot for roughly a year from next February. Palmer, who was at one time attached to another superhero flick, “Justice League”, wouldn’t be able to fit “Spider-Man” and “Fury Road” in – they’re on similar shooting schedules (“Spider-Man” begins it’s shoot in December and will likely go on for several months), and more so, lengthy ones.

Teresa Palmer is lucky. And, having swapped an Australian housing estate for the canyons of Hollywood, she knows it. It’s a word that litters her conversation when she speaks exclusively to The Sunday Telegraph about her latest turn opposite Nicolas Cage in the re-imagining of Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (think live action and mops, but no Mickey Mouse).

I shot a scene with Jay (Baruchel, her on-screen love interest), driving around near Times Square and there were people screaming out to us and trying to get in the shot and it was so surreal. Here I was in New York, shooting this movie. I used to be an extra on films in Adelaide and remember being so excited just to see people shooting a movie. It was a pinch-myself moment. I felt very, very lucky.”

It’s a feeling the 24-year-old South Australian has clung to as she has risen from her 2006 debut in the Cannes-screened student film 2:37, to December Boys, opposite Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe, to the children’s romp with Adam Sandler, Bedtime Stories.

“I always have those feelings – lucky and blessed – and I don’t know if they’ll ever go away. I really hope they don’t, as I think it keeps you grounded. That’s how I feel about every film I do.”

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, a $US150 million blockbuster, is Palmer’s biggest role to date. She may play the pretty young thing, again, but it should progress her power in an industry clogged with, well, pretty young things.

Given the film’s high profile, it strikes an odd note to hear Palmer still has to endure the audition circuit. “I still have to get in the trenches and battle away,” she admits. “But when I started out in Hollywood, my first audition was with the casting director’s assistant. You move up the ranks to the actual casting director and now I’m (that word again) lucky enough to read for the director and the producer.

“It’s funny to sit in the waiting room with girls I’ve been watching for years, like Kate Bosworth and Amy Adams – who I think are incredible – and it’s really flattering to be in competition with them.” Palmer is speaking from Miami, where she is completing another action sci-fi piece, I Am Number Four. It’s another multi-million-dollar US blockbuster that will undoubtedly place Palmer’s beauty before her talents. She’s aware of possible typecasting and insists future plans are to move between the commercial and independent worlds.

“I’m always trying to plan out my life, but this is a career that is unpredictable and I never know where I’ll be. Ideally, I want to strike a good balance between commercial and independents – work with good people.” One upcoming venture is the small Australian flick Say Nothing, scheduled for November. It’s produced by Bluetongue Films, the company her director boyfriend, Nash Edgerton, runs with his actor brother Joel. “Joel Edgerton and I are attached to it. It’ll be exciting to work back in Sydney,” says Palmer. And to work with her film-maker boyfriend? “He’s doing all the stunts. Yeah, he’s a talented director,”she says, neatly deflecting the personal intrusion. “And a good person. I love hanging out with him. It’ll be nice.” Despite her rising profile, Palmer says her life in LA, the city she calls home most of the time, remains paparazzi-free.

“I think it’s something that is very easily avoided and you can step away from that if you want to,” she says. “I can walk around relatively anonymously.” She’s just lucky, I guess.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is Out Now

At the junket for Disney’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, ComingSoon.net learned from actress Teresa Palmer that she’s not going to be appearing in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, the planned relaunch of Miller’s breakthrough sci-fi action thriller, this one starring Tom Hardy in the role of Mad Max.

“I’m not [in it], actually,” Palmer said, “That’s just a rumor that has been on the internet.”

Despite the dismissal of the casting as a rumor, Palmer’s name was first mentioned in January when her co-star Jay Baruchel was talking to press for How to Train Your Dragon and told The Herald Sun:

“She gets to work with him, and she’s (going to be) doing Mad Max 4 with Miller,” Baruchel said, adding, “She’s the main chick in Fury Road. She’s going to be there for over a year. It’s really, really cool.”

Does this mean that Mad Max: Fury Road has another opening for a female role or was Palmer up for the role that eventually went to Adelaide Clemens, something that changed after Baruchel’s statement? Instead, Palmer is currently shooting D.J. Caruso’s sci-fi flick I Am Number Four outside of Pittsburgh for its release on February 18, 2011.

Teresa Palmer is learning to count for I Am Number Four, DreamWorks’ adaptation of the upcoming young-adult science fiction book by James Frey and Jobie Hughes. D.J. Caruso is directing.

Palmer will play Number Six, one of nine aliens who escape their home planet before its annihilation by a rival species and hide out on Earth disguised as human high schoolers.

Alex Pettyfer, a British actor making his American debut with Beastly, will play the title role of Four. Sharlto Copley, the star of last year’s hit District 9, will play Pettyfer’s guardian and mentor.

Michael Bay is producing with Steven Spielberg. Chris Bender and J.C. Spink are executive producing with David Valdes. Al Gough and Miles Millar wrote the screenplay.

The WME-repped Palmer recently appeared in Bedtime Stories and next will be seen as the female lead in Disney’s summer tentpole The Sorcerer’s Apprentice with Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel. She also will take part in the Mad Max movie Fury Road.

Source: HeatVisionBlog.com