FILMOGRAPHY

2005] The Bet
2001-03] "The Secret Life of Us"
2001] The Bank
2001] The Secret Life of Us (TV)
2001] "The Farm" (mini) TV Series

LINKS

IMDB

CONTACT

Sibylla Budd
c/o RGM Associates
PO Box 128, Surry Hills,
NSW, 2010, Australia

Sibylla's brother Alex, 27, is the tour manager for OzOpera, the educational and touring arm of Opera Australia. He also has ambitions as an opera singer. She has 2 more brothers Hamilton is 23 and Henry, 19.

Daughter of a Canberra management consultant father and pathologist mother. Her parents named her Sibylla after the Greek word for prophet.

She graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 1999 and soon after, won several high-profile roles, including in the ABC's Something in the Air.

Her talent agent is Robyn Gardiner whom snapped up Sybilla after seeing her agency audition on the final day of college. For her audition piece to an assembled audience of casting agents Sibylla chose to perform the Steven Berkoff monologue Decadence, explaining how fox-hunting was such a turn-on, sitting straddled over a horse - played by her boyfriend of the time - brandishing a whip. "I thought, 'Yeah! Fake it till you make it'," says Budd, giggling at the memory. "I was so nervous, I was terrified. Afterwards, I kept my eyes to the floor. I couldn't bring myself to look at anyone in the eye."

Sibylla took a year off between school and drama school. She travelled and worked in England and Western Europe before drama school auditions. She spent a year waitressing in Sydney working out her plan of attack and then finally applied to NIDA. It rejected her.

When Budd left school in the capital, she took a one-year course at Nepean, then applied to all the big drama schools. Each one turned her down. What's more, they all gave her the same verdict: Come back when you're older.

At the Victorian College of the Arts Sibylla appeared in numerous plays including Iliad, Criminals in Love, The Rover, Month in the Country, The Trojan Women, As You Like It and The Cherry Orchard.

The Bank director Robert Connolly on Budd:
"She's just someone everyone seems to love having around. She brings such energy to everything she does. She's such an upbeat person. She's very entertaining and playful."

The Bank director Robert Connolly on selecting Budd:
“We had to move to Melbourne to make the film to avoid the Olympics, and I was out of my comfort zone with the casting. She (Budd) was recommended to us straight out of school."

Budd on her The Bank co-stars:
"I learned a lot from Anthony and David. Just from watching them and asking questions."

Sibylla on her career:
"My career so far has been mad. Very fluky. I guess it's about a bit of talent - hopefully - but probably much more about luck. A lot of people out there leave drama school and never work. I'm lucky so many people have been ready to take a chance on me. But you just never know what's around the corner. All I know is that I have to make this work. It's the one thing that really fires me up. An amazingly high percentage of people don't work, but I'm not going to let that happen. It simply isn't an option."

Budd on The Bank:
"I loved doing the film. The character is so wonderful and gutsy and it's great having such a strong female character out there. It was such a blast, too, to work with David Wenham and Anthony LaPaglia. Even the sex scene wasn't too hard. It was a closed set and all a little tense and then David gets down to his undies and prances around like a ballerina. I laughed so much, I ended up really relaxed. I'm now so excited about the film. I'm still wide-eyed about the whole experience."

On her time at the Victorian College Of Arts:
"I think people believe that being a drama student is all about standing around pretending to be a tree. But you do the longest hours. You have classes from 9am to 6pm, then you're often working till 11pm preparing for things the next day. It was very hard. I grew up a lot there."

Budd on her fiesty Secret Life character:
"Secret Life opened in the UK before it opened here. And we had all these journalists flown over to talk to us. And one by one they all admitted they were scared to meet and talk to me. They said they thought I would be sour and hideous and narky and difficult. God, guys, get over it. It's just a character. I'm not like that in real life."

Budd on her first big screen performance in The bank:
"I've seen the movie twice. And I've spoken to other actors and they say you have to see the movie you're in at least three times before you even start to become objective. The first time I saw myself, I thought I was hideous. The next time I see it I want to be part of a paying audience. I'm thinking of putting on a disguise one day and sneaking into the Nova."