“It was always going to be very exciting to support one another on what would be our next endeavour. I think it took me longer than I thought to find where I wanted to work and what products I was into or interested in, and I think that was probably just down to that fact that anyone in their early twenties is going through the same thing no matter what kind of experience they’ve had.”
These days, it seems Wright has swapped her life as the red-headed witch in the Harry Potter franchise to a beach going, sun baking jetsetter who is often taking in the lilac tinged sunset on the rocky coast.
However, many of those travel-inducing shots are taken just north of Bondi while visiting family and as a part of a long form film series which Wright is piecing together with each trip.
“All my mum’s side of my family live in Australia so I have a strong connection to there – having gone there since I was a child,” she says. “I recently was there in Sydney visiting my grandma and my aunt, and I was also there shooting a film that is part of a long series I’m doing.
“To be honest, I always wished I could travel a little bit more and I say that every time I go. I just see my family and then never go and explore. There are such beautiful landscapes and it’s such a huge country. I went to Uluru once when I was a child and I thought that was incredible.”
It was only expected of the now 25-year-old that after first stepping foot on set at the age of eight, film would become a key part of who she was. After being exposed to the industry for so long, Wright continued her studies in film and television at University of the Arts in London and since graduating has gone on to create her film company, BonBonLumière.
While acting is still something Wright takes pleasure in, recently acting in After the Dark (2015) and The Highway is for Gamblers (2015), her passion has now stepped to the other side of the camera in directing due to the unique perspective it provides on storytelling.
“That was why directing is something that naturally appeals to me more, because I just like to see the whole picture of things and be there at the birth of the idea, the development and how you put people together,” Wright says. “I’m still so much trying to tell stories I’m interested in, and figuring out what stories I want to tell.”
Having made her directorial debut in 2012 with Separate We Come, Separate We Go at the Cannes Film Festival, Wright has developed her style and received widespread accolades for her work and ambition. However, there’s still plenty of growth ahead for the budding filmmaker.
“I feel comfortable but I don’t think I’m anywhere near having figured out my niche as a director,” she says. “I think the beauty of short films in particular is that they are on a much smaller scale in terms of turnaround, so you can be making a lot of content year-by-year and each piece is a progression of what you’re trying to say, what kind of questions you’re trying to ask with your work and what kind of stories you’re trying to explore. I definitely feel much more confident than I did the year I left film school.”
BY AMANDA SHERRING
