Gemma Ward, action star?

mario sorrenti/vogue italia via dusty burrito

Well after last week's news that Gemma Ward has signed to play a small role as a mermaid in Pirates of the Caribbean 4, comes word that she may have been in Sydney this week auditioning for another action quadrilogy: Mad Max 4: Fury Road, which is due to be filmed in Australia. Ward’s Sydney model agency, Viviens, confirmed to frockwriter that Ward did indeed fly to Sydney this week to do a Mad Max “workshop” for two days at Fox Studios. Has she already been cast? Viviens was not sure and Ward's other agents were unreachable. The film’s cast already includes Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Teresa Palmer and Zoe Kravitz. Ward was of course an actress before she became the world’s number one ranked model on models.com, just 14 when she appeared in Elissa Down’s 2001 feature Pink Pyjamas. Ward then co-starred in Down’s critically-acclaimed 2008 feature, The Black Balloon, before moving on to the small role of ‘Dollface’ in Bryan Bertino’s 2008 thriller The Strangers.

Coincidentally, Ward lookalike Amanda Seyfried, now 25, was also 14 when she made her acting debut: playing Lucy Montgomery in the tv soap As The World Turns.

Seyfriend now has a ten year body of work behind her, including Mean Girls, Mama Mia!, Jennifer's Body and the tv series Big Love.

Ward hasn’t been twiddling her thumbs in the profile stakes – just not in Hollywood.

And a breakthrough role might well be just one casting call away.