Emily Browning Breaks Down Her Career, from Ghost Ship to One More Shot

Photo: George Chinsee

Emily Browning needs no introduction. Although she may fly somewhat under the radar in contrast to her fellow Australian exports, she has proven herself a sturdy performer since her teens. Whether it be horror remakes or adaptations of revered literature, she has bravely stepped into characters with pre-existing fandom on multiple occasions. She's also not craven to take on roles that others would consider too risky, proudly fronting projects that wear criticism for their perceived transgressive qualities. Her gentle authenticity has defined her screen persona, and her fearlessness has seen her work alongside the likes of Meryl Streep, Heath Ledger, Jim Carrey, Tom Hardy, and Saoirse Ronan.

Browning has been back on our shores for the premiere of her new title, the Y2K-era time loop comedy One More Shot, screening at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival. Following her appearance, I sat down with her for a wide-ranging and vulnerable discussion detailing the eclectic films that have forged her enthralling career. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

GHOST SHIP (directed by Steve Beck, 2002)

A boat salvage crew locate and reckon with a haunted passenger liner. Browning portrays Katie, one of its ghostly inhabitants.

I was in junior high. I was 12 or 13 when I made that. I went to the premiere in LA and walked the red carpet, but I actually wasn't allowed to sit and watch the film. My parents said, 'No, this is an adult film. You can't watch this,' and I was like, 'Alright.' But it was pretty incredible, and when I got married two years ago, my husband – he's going to kill me when I say this (laughs) – in his vows said, 'I can't believe I'm marrying the girl from Ghost Ship!' That's very much his sense of humour.

I made a tape and sent it off when I was 11 years old, and it was what started my career overseas. We filmed it on the Gold Coast, but then it played on American TV, and a casting director in LA saw it. I don't remember their name, which is terrible, but they asked me to audition for Lemony Snicket after seeing me in Ghost Ship. It was a huge turning point for me, even if I didn't realise it then.

I do have a vague recollection of being in the makeup trailer and hearing the older actors talk about how they were mad about scene changes. But honestly, I was just happy to be there. I was like, 'Well, I'm having a great time.' Now I understand it; I've experienced that more. But at the time, I was just stoked to be on a film set. I still always am. It's my favourite place to be, so I had no awareness of that whatsoever. I didn't even know that Julianna Margulies disowned the film. I thought it was cool.

LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (directed by Brad Silberling, 2004)

The scheming Count Olaf plans to steal the inheritance of the recently orphaned Baudelaire children. Browning is the eldest, Violet. 

I vividly remember getting the phone call that I got that role. I was at my Nanna's house, and I was literally jumping up and down on the couch. I was so excited because for a teenager in the early 2000s, Jim Carrey was it. It meant going to LA. We shot it for nine months. It was insane, but it was an amazing shoot. I don't think I appreciated what Meryl Streep meant at the time. She was incredible, and I knew my parents were super excited about her, but I was just like, 'She's a nice lady.'

My whole family packed up and moved to LA for that period, and while I loved the work aspect of being in LA, I thought, 'This is really not for me.' I saw this very narrow version of Hollywood, and I didn't like it. I met a lot of other child actors who seemed to have no life outside of making movies. I remember I had people trying to tell me that I had to do meetings at Nickelodeon and Disney, and I was like, 'I don't want to do that.' I was 15 and a little ratbag. I thought I was punk and was like, 'No! Fuck that! I don't want to do that.'

I told my parents that, and they were like, 'Great, let's go home.' They are not stage parents by any stretch of the imagination. They're incredibly supportive of whatever I want to do. They've always said, 'If you want to quit, please quit.' So when I said I wanted to go home and stop acting for a while, they said, 'Let's do that,' and I did. Outside of a few little things in Australia, I didn't properly work again until I finished high school because that experience was just a little overwhelming for me.

THE UNINVITED (directed by Thomas & Charles Guard, 2009)

After a stint in a mental hospital, a young woman and her twin sister set out to avenge their mother's death. Browning leads this remake of a South Korean classic. 

That was great. I had so much fun on that film. I guess I have a face for horror movies, but I'm not a big horror movie person. I'm kind of a baby; I get really scared. But Tom and Charlie, the directors, were fantastic. I loved them. I was 19 and still somewhat scarred from this idea of Hollywood, but I had a long-term boyfriend at the time. He came with me to Vancouver and got a job at American Apparel while I was on set. It was cute living there together.

I don't remember much else about it, except that it was my first film back. I was a little nervous, but it was enjoyable. Though part of me wished I wasn't only getting horror movies. It seemed like everyone wanted to put me in horror movies, and I didn't want to do too much of that, even if I had a really fun time on The Uninvited. My husband, brother, and I were at dinner the other night, and they were asking ChatGPT to make up jokes about me. The theme of all of them was me being pale and tired and goth adjacent, and I thought, 'Oh, interesting. I didn't know that was still my image. That's so funny.' I guess that stuff sticks.

SUCKER PUNCH (directed by Zack Snyder, 2011)

Fantasy and reality begin to merge when Browning's Babydoll attempts to escape the institution she's been committed to. 

Zack Snyder is an angel of a human being. It is so nice when people you're a fan of end up being wonderful. He's so great. Everyone says they have a no assholes policy nowadays, but it's true with Zack. Every single person on that crew was wonderful. Every single person on that cast was wonderful. Those girls and I were so bonded together. We had these insane workdays, and then we would hang out every weekend. We would hang out every day after work as well. Jena [Malone] and I lived together for the whole shoot. I get emotional talking about it. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Just before then, I was almost ready to quit acting. I was not getting the parts I wanted, and the only things that were getting sent to me were stuff that didn't interest me. I was really like, 'God, this is too hard.' I was not having a good time. Then I got that role, and it reminded me how much I love making movies and how good they can be when they're good. That movie was everything.

Also, up until that film, I had never really exercised before. I was a gymnast when I was a kid, but I never played any sports. They had to teach me how to look cool when I run when I was doing that movie because Zack saw me run, and he was like, 'Oh, no. We need to do something about this. You're supposed to be a hero. No, this is not going to work.' It changed the course of my life in that way, too. We trained so hard for that film, and it made me realise that I don't get as sad if I move my body. It was worth it just for that. That experience was an absolute dream in every way.

SLEEPING BEAUTY (directed by Julia Leigh, 2011)

Browning stars as the beauty in question — a university student who takes up a lucrative position to sleep naked in the company of wealthy strangers. 

What draws me to anything I do is a gut feeling. It's about whether I like it or not. I also have a short attention span. I get bored easily, so I think I naturally am drawn to doing things that are different from what I've done before. I went onto Sleeping Beauty almost immediately after Sucker Punch, and I loved how completely different it was. The person who wrote it, Julia [Leigh], is first and foremost a novelist. It was so beautifully written, and I was affected by it. I'm also drawn to things that scare me, and I was like, 'Wow, I have to be naked a lot in this movie ... hell yeah! Let's do it.' I loved it. 

On Sucker Punch, I was socialising with people constantly and hanging out all the time. Everything felt very lighthearted. Sleeping Beauty was a more isolating experience, but not necessarily in a negative way. I was living in an apartment in Bronte, but I couldn't get any sunlight, so I would watch the beach from my window and stay in. I'd go to the beach to walk in the mornings before the sun came up. I felt cool. I was 21 or 22, and I felt very grown up making that movie. It made me feel like I was a real actor.

The film incited a lot of discussion, and generally, I have to remove myself from that noise. It's not because I don't care, but because I care so much. I'm too sensitive, and I learned very early on that I can't torture myself in that way. I remember doing interviews at Cannes, and things have changed a lot now, but honestly, it was the Australian journalists who were asking the shitty questions. I remember I got asked, 'What do you think your young fans are going to think of this?' I was like, 'I don't know. I mean, I'm an adult.' I was barely one, but technically I was. I do remember people trying to shame me for it. Luckily, I have a contrarian streak that made me weirdly more proud of it, but it was also really overwhelming. I vividly recall Cannes as where I had my first panic attack. It was an intense situation, but I don't regret it for a second.

LEGEND (directed by Brian Helgeland, 2015)

In this biopic of English gangsters Ronald and Reginald Kray, Browning inhabits Frances Shea, the wife of Reggie. 

That one was interesting. It was a challenge in the best possible way. I loved making that film. I know it probably sounds like bullshit that I'm only saying positive things about everything, but you're only asking about films that I had a positive experience on.

I loved working with Tom [Hardy]. He's a wonderful, wonderful actor, and a very fun person to be around. I am not a big homework person, but the one area where I wanted to be prepared was the accent work. I love accents, and I have a sensitive ear for them. I hate hearing other people do bad accents, and I've definitely done not the best accents before. I think the one in Legend was fine. I imagine that if you actually are someone from East London, you might be like, 'Hmm, not quite,' but I think it mostly passed. I was really studious about it, and that was fun for me. It opened up something that I enjoy now. That film, like Sleeping Beauty, was an experience that made me think, 'This is real actor stuff.' It felt like a big, important moment. 

ONE MORE SHOT (directed by Nick Clifford, 2025)

In her latest turn, Browning is granted the opportunity to repeat the start of her New Year's Eve thanks to a magical bottle of tequila. 

It started with another huge turning point in my career. I did a show called Class of '07, which I feel unlocked something in me. I was terrified about it. I'd never done comedy before, and I didn't know if I could do it. Honestly, I don't know if the director knew if I could do it or not, but she pushed me. We did a lot of improv, and she was like, 'You need to be willing to embarrass yourself.' It took me a while to get there. Then, once we unlocked it, I was like, 'This is huge and so fun.' There's something so exciting about embracing the possibility of failure when you're doing comedy. Before then, I had reached the limit of what I could do in my career without being willing to embarrass myself, so I credit Class of '07 with opening up this new path for me, which led to One More Shot.

Both roles have me leaning into the dickhead version of myself, which is so fun and something I'm addicted to now. It's permeating everything that I'm doing. I have another film called The Fox that was just finished. I don't know when it's coming out, but hopefully it's not too far away. It's not as much of a straight comedy; it's a very dark comedy. At the moment, I'm drawn to these weird, goofy movies that are also a little bit twisted, and a lot of them are Australian, which is great. It's so good to be back working here. And One More Shot is the first romantic comedy I've ever done, which is crazy because I love the genre so much. I'd never been sent one that felt right for me, or I felt I was right for, or casting directors felt I was right for. 

I'm really proud of it, and I think the fact that it's Australian means that it doesn't fall into the trap of saccharine Hollywood storytelling. I love that stuff, but this has a bit of acid to it. We're poking fun at ourselves, and we're aware of the conceit of a time-travelling bottle of tequila and how silly it sounds. We're able to make fun of it whilst also trying to make it feel as real as possible. 

And to close with an overall reflection … 

This is the first time in my life where I'm able to be pretty proud of the diversity of my work, and there's still so much more that I want to do. For a long time, I was terrified of the industry in a lot of ways, and I'd be in this push and pull of doing a job and then hiding for a while. I know that if I were a more ambitious and maybe less sensitive person, I probably could have amassed more credits and diversity by this point, and I judged myself for a long time for not being better at planning what the arc of my career should look like. But I've finally accepted the fact that I did things the way I needed to do them. Now I'm in a place where I'm becoming more confident in my abilities and learning to trust myself and my choices. This is what makes sense to me. I'll continue to trust my gut and keep working because I like working. I love to make movies, and this was such a lovely interview. I wish we had more time. I hope we get to speak again one day. 

This article was originally published by Rough Cut