The 25-year-old actor reflects on the roles that led her to star alongside George Clooney in Disney’s futuristic adventure.
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"I've had such a weird career," Britt Robertson told BuzzFeed News recently. "I've kind of done little bits of everything." In the span of only 15 years, the 25-year-old actor has played a shape-shifter (Sheena), a witch (The Secret Circle), a waitress trapped under a mysterious dome (Under the Dome), and a smattering of teenagers that range from petulant (Dan in Real Life) to perfect (The First Time).
Now Robertson is tackling her biggest role to date as the lead of Disney's Tomorrowland, a big-budget spectacle co-starring George Clooney and directed by The Incredibles' Brad Bird. Robertson plays Casey Newton, a brilliant but aimless young woman who could very well be humanity's last hope for salvation.
Whether it succeeds or fails when it hits theaters on May 22, Tomorrowland marks an important moment in Robertson's career — one that began when she was 5 years old in her family's living room in North Carolina. "I remember being super, super young … in my living room, putting on shows for people and acting out monologues," she told BuzzFeed News during a recent press day for Tomorrowland at The Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills. "I remember performing and loving it."
That early passion led to community theater and then, at 12, a cross-country move to California. "I'm sure it was so hard for my mom to let me move to L.A. with my grandmother," Robertson said. "I know that's still really hard for her, knowing that she lost me for most of my childhood." The move was equally tough on Robertson, who found herself thousands of miles away from almost everyone she knew and loved. "A good amount of my life was being spent away from my parents and my siblings," she said. "There would be times where I would get really homesick and miss my mom."
But Robertson was laser-focused on finding success in Hollywood, with which she still has complicated relationship. "I don't ever want to feel like I'm a part of this town," she said. "As much as people say, 'It's a small world,' it's not a community. It's really a working environment. I've met a lot of really awesome people and I've met a lot of really crazy, awful people. So I think [my] scrappiness is … keeping me grounded and humble and working towards something great."
Through it all, Robertson said she's learned about herself as a person, about the kind of career she wanted to have, and — perhaps most significantly — about the kind of career she didn't want to have. "I never just want to give into the work and say, 'Well, I've got it, it's easy, and it comes natural,'" she said. "I want to work as hard as I can to make something that I'm really proud of."
Below, in her own, lightly edited words, Robertson reflects on seven of the roles that have made her proud, frustrated, excited, and prepared for what's next.
Dan in Real Life (2007)
Disney
Following a dozen bit parts in film and television, Robertson landed what she considers her first big break: the role of Cara Burns, a sulky teen desperate to avoid the family trip her dad (Steve Carell) has planned.
"I don't remember a lot — ever — about anything, but I do remember the audition process for Dan in Real Life because it was down to myself and two other girls. I flew to New York and we had this six-hour workshop with the director, Peter Hedges, and two of the ladies who were cast as my sisters. I remember, in that audition, the very last thing he had us do was come into the room and have this nervous breakdown about our boyfriend leaving, which was my role in the movie.
And I don't remember what came over me, because I'm not this brave usually, but I just remember being like, This is my time. I just really need to have a nervous breakdown. I need to be as crazy and go as insane as possible. And I did. I was much more crazy in that audition than I ended up being on screen. But I remember Peter came out crying — he cries a lot, he's a big crier — after all of us went in. And then he called me the very next day — which never happens — and said, 'You're going to be Cara in Dan in Real Life.'"
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