By Michael Idato

Copyright brisbanetimes

“As the narrator, you have to be fair in how you tell the story and having to be honest when you were the villain and when you were the victim,” Fox adds. “So I just tried my best to do that and be a fair and reliable and honest and truthful narrator. But ultimately for the goal of release, [was] lightening the load a little bit.”

I ask her whether, as an actor, sometimes in the makeup chair as you become a character, the reflected image at some point stops being you, and becomes something else. Versions of you also exist on movie posters and billboards. So what is her sense of the girl in the mirror, the girl on the poster, the girl on the billboard? In this situation, who is she?

When we meet, Fox is stylishly dressed and impeccably groomed. A brunette today. Focused and very business-like. It’s a universe away from her performance as Elsie, a bleached blonde wild child alternately using clothes as armour and unleashing her sensuality.

In that sense, it is a true performance because the two women I have met – the character on screen, and the woman who played her – seem a universe apart. That said, Elsie looks much like Fox did when she turned up to the set; Tipping resisted her attempts to make her character more fully transformed.

“But I think that ultimately, whether it’s the girl in the poster or the girl in the mirror … it’s like, it’s all just me,” Fox says. “That’s it. It’s really not as deep. It really is all just whatever little sliver of myself I’m amplifying in that moment. We’re all very multidimensional human beings, especially women. We can wear many, many, many hats and make it look effortless. So, I think they’re all just me.”

Him is in cinemas from October 2.