Isla Fisher
Isla Lang Fisher is an Australian actress. Born in Oman to Scottish parents with whom she moved to Australia during her childhood, she began appearing in television commercials and came to prominence for her portrayal of Shannon Reed on the Australian soap opera Home and Away for which she received two Logie Award nominations.
Fisher moved to Hollywood with a supporting role in the comedy horror film Scooby-Doo and has since starred in films such as Wedding Crashers, Wedding Daze, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Bachelorette, The Great Gatsby, Now You See Me, and Nocturnal Animals. Her other credits include I Heart Huckabees, Definitely, Maybe, Keeping Up with the Joneses, Tag, and The Beach Bum, in addition to voice roles in animated films such as Horton Hears a Who!, Rango, Rise of the Guardians, Back to the Outback, and Dog Man.
Fisher had a recurring role on the fourth and fifth seasons of the sitcom Arrested Development and has starred in the comedy drama series Wolf Like Me since 2022. She has authored two young adult novels and the Marge in Charge book series. From 2010 to 2025, she was married to English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, with whom she has three children.
Early life
Isla Lang Fisher was born in Muscat, Oman, on 3 February 1976, the daughter of Scottish parents Elspeth Reid and Brian Fisher. At the time, her father was working there as a banker for the United Nations. Fisher and her family returned to their hometown of Bathgate, Scotland, then moved to Australia when she was six years old and settled in Perth. She has four brothers and said that she had a "great" upbringing in Perth with a "very outdoorsy life". She has stated that her "sensibility is Australian", she has a "laid-back attitude to life", and that she feels "very Australian". Her parents later separated; her mother and brothers now live in Athens, Greece, while her father lived in Frankfurt, Germany; he died in January 2023. Fisher attended Swanbourne Primary School and Methodist Ladies' College in Perth. She appeared in lead roles in school productions such as Little Shop of Horrors. At the age of 21, she attended L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris, where she studied clown, mime, musical theatre, and commedia dell'arte.Career
1985–2001: Early acting credits
Fisher made her first on-screen appearances in commercials on Australian television at the age of 9, and made her professional acting debut in 1993 with two guest-starring roles in the children's television shows Bay City and Paradise Beach. At 18, with her mother's help, she published two teen novels, Bewitched and Seduced by Fame. In a 2005 interview with Sunday Mirror, she said that had she not been successful as an actress, she would probably have been a full-time writer.Between 1994 and 1997, Fisher played Shannon Reed, a young woman who develops anorexia, on the Australian soap opera Home and Away. In a 1996 interview with The Sun-Herald, she spoke of her success and experiences on the show: "I would be stupid to let it go to my head because it could all end tomorrow and I would just fade back into obscurity. I like working on Home and Away but it's a heavy workload so I get stressed out a lot. We work about 15 hours a day, including the time it takes to learn lines. I know a lot of people work those sort of hours but I think we really feel it because most of us are young and fairly inexperienced. But I am very grateful because it is good experience. It's like an apprenticeship, but we do it in front of 20 million people so all our mistakes are up for the world to see." For her performance in the series, Fisher received nominations for Most Popular New Talent at the 1995 Logie Awards, and for Most Popular Actress at the 1997 ceremony.
After leaving the soap, Fisher enrolled at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, a theatre and arts training school in Paris, and went on to appear in pantomime in the United Kingdom. She also toured with Darren Day in the musical Summer Holiday; appeared in the London theatre production of Così, and played an ill-fated member of an elite group of international students in the German slasher film Swimming Pool.
2002–2004: Move to Hollywood
Fisher transitioned to Hollywood in 2002, with the part of the love interest of cowardly slacker Shaggy Rogers in the live-action film Scooby-Doo. Although Scooby-Doo received negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, grossing US$275.7 million worldwide. On that early stage in her career, Fisher remarked: "I only came out on the back of the movie for the premiere of Scooby Doo. And then, I ended up getting representation and ended up getting a job, almost straight away. So, I was fortunate, in that I didn't have to come out to L.A. and join a queue of however many people, and try to get work. I came in on the back of what was deemed as a big studio movie that had had extraordinary success". She subsequently played supporting roles in the independent film Dallas 362 and the Australian comedy The Wannabes. In his review for the latter, David Rooney of Variety felt that Fisher "adds easy charm and a thinly developed hint of romantic interest", in what he summed as an "uneven but endearing farce about breaking into showbiz". In the comedy I Heart Huckabees, directed by David O. Russell, she played what was described as a "punchy little part", by newspaper The Age.2005–2009: Breakthrough
Fisher's breakthrough came with the comedy Wedding Crashers, opposite Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, taking on the role of the seemingly sexually aggressive and precocious younger daughter of a politician falling in love with an irresponsible wedding crasher. On her part in the film, she remarked: "It was an interesting character to play, because she was so crazy and lacking in any kind of social etiquette. She doesn't care what anyone thinks." For one particular scene, involving sexual content, she used a body double. "I negotiated that from the beginning, trying to analyse why. I find pornographic violence, just gratuitous and unnecessary than nudity, because there's nothing more peaceful and beautiful". The film was favourably received by critics and made US$285.1 million worldwide. Empire magazine found Fisher to be an "unexpected, scene-stealing joy", and her performance earned her the Best Breakthrough Performance Award at the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and two Teen Choice Awards nominations.Fisher appeared as a Manhattan party host in the independent drama London, opposite Jessica Biel, Chris Evans and Jason Statham. She next starred in the romantic comedy Wedding Daze, with Jason Biggs, playing a dissatisfied waitress who spontaneously gets engaged to a grieving young man. While Wedding Daze opened in second place on its UK opening weekend, the film received mediocre reviews from critics. Nevertheless, Reel Film Reviews found the film to be an "irreverent, sporadically hilarious romantic comedy that boasts fantastic performances from stars Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher". In the thriller The Lookout, opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Goode, Fisher played a woman used by a gang leader to seduce a man with lasting mental impairments. Describing on how she took her character, she said: "It was one of those situations where I read the script and thought, 'This is the take. I don't want to play the cliché femme fatale. I don't want to come in and be the woman with the sexual appetite, who wants to take down this man. I want to come in and make her this big beating heart, and innocent a woman who has no identity, who knows the man she's with, who doesn't have an agenda.' Because every character in the script has an agenda. I thought how interesting if my character doesn't have one if she's a victim of her own kindness. So, that was my starting point." While The Lookout received a limited release, the film was favourably received. The comedy Hot Rod, with Andy Samberg, saw Fisher star as the college-graduate neighbour on whom an amateur stuntman has a crush.
Fisher appeared in a deleted scene from The Simpsons Movie, where she and Erin Brockovich played consultants. Fisher played a copy girl who becomes romantically involved with an ambitious political consultant in the romantic comedy Definitely, Maybe, with Ryan Reynolds, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz and Abigail Breslin. Reviewers felt the film was a "refreshing entry into the romantic comedy genre", and The New Yorker wrote that the "interest lies" in the female characters, concluding: "Isla Fisher, short, with thick auburn hair, is a changeable free spirit who keeps the male lead, and maybe herself off balance". Budgeted at US$7 million, Definitely, Maybe was a commercial success, grossing US$55.4 million worldwide. Fisher also voiced a professor in a city of microscopic creatures in the animated comedy film Horton Hears a Who!, featuring Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Will Arnett, among others.
Fisher obtained her first leading film role in the comedy Confessions of a Shopaholic, where she played a college graduate who works as a financial journalist in New York City to support her shopping addiction. She felt "apprehensive" as she took on her first star vehicle, stating: "I was gobsmacked that anyone would give me my own movie. I am eternally bewildered. Every time I see Jerry Bruckheimer, I want to shake him and say: 'Are you mad? Why would you put me on a poster?'". Upon its release, the film received lukewarm reviews from critics; while Time Out described her as "silly and adorable", The Christian Science Monitor remarked: "Isla Fisher is such a bundle of comic energy that watching her spin her wheels in the aggressively unfunny Confessions of a Shopaholic counts as cruel and unusual punishment for her as well as for us". Despite the critical response, the film was a commercial success; it opened with US$15 million on its North America opening weekend and went on to gross US$108.3 million worldwide. Fisher received her third Teen Choice Award nomination.