Girlfriend Magazine caught up with Molly Daniel's to answer all her biggest fangirl questions. Below is a short transcript of the interview.
WERE YOU A FAN OF THE JOHN MARSDEN BOOKS BEFORE YOU LANDED THE ROLE?
"I totally was. I was a fan of everything John Marsden did and Tomorrow, When The War Began was amazing because it was people older than me, but still young, facing the really confronting situation while being teenagers and having to deal with problems of their age."
DID YOU HAVE TO LEARN ANY SPECIAL SKILLS TO BE ELLIE?
"We did a lot of stunt training, learning things like how to shoot a gun, how to jump off heights. There’s a bit of jumping off cliffs and bridges in the show. It’s fun and not scary because you’re looked after."
WERE THERE ANY SCARY SET MOMENTS?
"There were real bombs, explosion scenes, which is scary. You have to wear your ear plugs and you don’t even get to hear the people yelling 'Action!'. It’s tough because you’re just guessing. Again, great stunt department, we knew we were safe the whole time."
WOULD YOU SAY THAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE THING ABOUT PLAYING ELLIE, THE STUNTS OR THE CHARACTER?
"The character. When I read the books she was definitely the character I related to the most because she’s the natural leader, a bit bossy and hot-headed, loves her friends and family, I could relate to that. The fact that she has all these moral dilemmas to deal with the whole way through the series, that’s really cool to play."
IF YOU WERE IN THE SAME SORT OF SITUATION, DO YOU THINK YOU’D REACT THE SAME WAY?
"To be honest, I’d probably be in the Showground. I wouldn’t go for a guerrilla fighter. Part of the reason why it works so well in the books is that they’re country kids, they know the land very well, and I’m a city girl who would be captured by the enemy. It freaks me out that they can’t contact their families. Not knowing what was happening to my parents in that situation would destroy me."
DO YOU HAVE ANY CRUSHES FOR YOUR CO-STARS?
"I think because I did a lot of scenes with Narek, who plays Homer, and JP, who plays Lee, there was a lot of chemistry. Which is part of the reason you get casted, how you work together. But I think we became too much of a family to have any crushes, I guess by the end of all this the boys will act like my annoying brothers!"
IS IT HARD TO MAINTAIN THOSE RELATIONSHIPS WORKING ON SET WITH YOUR OUTSIDE FRIENDS? DID YOU INTRODUCE ALL OF THEM TO EACH OTHER?
"I vanished from my real life while we were doing Tomorrow, When The War Began because I was there every day for a billion hours. But it’s fine – it ends and you go back to reality. You adjust."
WHO’S YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTER? YOU’VE ALREADY SAID YOU RELATE MOST TO ELLIE, BUT IS SHE YOUR FAVOURITE?
"I think she would be, especially after playing her, I feel this loyalty to her now. Over all the book series, I love Fi’s transformation. She’s the city girl who has to learn to deal with this when she’s the most out-of-depth of everyone. That’s interesting."
YOU GET TO BE WITH TV STARS LIKE DEBORAH MAILMAN, HAVE YOU LEARNED MUCH FROM THEM?
"I didn’t have many scenes with the adults, but the little scenes that I did were incredible because you learn so much from how professional they are. Deb Mailman is amazing and I grew up watching her on TV, she was on Play School at the time I was watching it. It was exciting, I was starstruck. Alison Bell played my Mum, she was amazing, and watching her back, we look alike. Good casting!"
WHAT’S AN AVERAGE DAY ON SET FOR YOU?
"We would get up at 5:00, especially if we were filming far away and we had to drive a lot. Sometimes it would take over an hour to be out of the country. Make-up, considering the look is for the war and you’re not supposed to have make-up on, there’s a lot of it. We get breakfast and lunch, and if we were doing night shoots we would get dinner, which is also exciting. Maybe six or seven big scenes we can get through in just one day."
WHAT IS ONE THING YOUR FANS DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU?
"I play base guitar. I have a pink and blue base"
WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS – OR TEN, IF THAT’S TOO SOON?
"I love my own work, so hopefully more writing…if we get more series we could do more books. I could be doing that for the rest of my life. There’s so many Tomorrow, When The War Began books. Seven, plus three Ellie Chronicles spin-offs. If we go ahead I have a whole career set-up!"
