Having spent a scorching summer at home in Newcastle, breathing in smoke from the many bushfires raging across the state, Geraldine Viswanathan was looking forward to returning to New York.
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The talented actor and former Hunter School of the Performing Arts student had roles lined up, a major movie to release and her very own apartment in Brooklyn to move into.
Then the coronavirus pandemic hit New York. The city became a global hot spot and its residents were told to stay indoors until further notice. Just two days after excitedly picking up the keys to her apartment, Viswanathan was now effectively trapped there.
"Being in New York during this pandemic was a completely surreal and bizarre experience," she says. "It did feel quite apocalyptic."
Read more: A leading lady in the making
Viswanathan is now in upstate New York with partner Miles Robbins (son of Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins) enjoying the fresh air.
"I feel very fortunate to be out of the city now and in great company," she says.
"We've been passing the time in pretty classic quarantine fashion - a lot of cooking and reading and watching movies.
"It's also wonderful to have some outdoor space - Miles has been teaching me how to play baseball and it turns out I can catch.
"Of course I miss home a lot and wish I was home but international travel is very complicated and dangerous right now."
Bad Education, the movie Viswanathan filmed with Hugh Jackman, has just been released on HBO. Inspired by true events, it follows Long Island school superintendent Frank Tassone (Jackman) and his assistant Pam Gluckin (Allison Janney) as they attempt to cover up an embezzlement scheme that threatens to destroy all they have built.
Viswanathan is the whistleblower student.
"I play Rachel who is a student at Roslyn High and is a part of the student newspaper," she says.
"She gets put on a writing assignment and ends up uncovering that the administration has been embezzling money from the school. She has to grapple with the weight of her discovery and whether or not to report the truth."
Working with Jackman was "amazing", Viswanathan says.
"He really is a lovely guy and a wonderful person to work with. His attitude and energy is always so warm and easygoing - he is very Aussie in that way," she says.
"I was so nervous to meet him - obviously - but he instantly put me at ease and made me feel at home. His wife, Deb, has family from Newcastle so when she came to the set the first thing she said to me was 'What is a girl from Newcastle doing here?' and I told her 'I do not know'.
"Hugh was always tap dancing between takes and he taught me how to play backgammon, since he and his wife play every day and he's a pro. He also got me a wonderful book of poetry about New York because he lives there and I was about to move there. It was so thoughtful.
"My Mum came to the set one day and he took the time out to take a bunch of selfies with her, which I got a gazillion daughter points for facilitating."
Viswanathan has come a long way since moving to Los Angeles at the age of 18 to audition for pilot season. Her big break came with Blockers, a 2018 comedy directed by Kay Cannon in which John Cena played her overprotective father and Miles Robbins played her prom date.
In the critically acclaimed Hala (2019) Viswanathan proved she could hold her own in a serious role, too.
"I really loved those early days of going to LA for classes and auditions. I met so many wonderful like-minded people and it was clear from the beginning that this is what I wanted to do," she says.
"I was so determined and working really hard to get my career started, but I was also 18 and figuring myself out in many ways. My memories are mostly of how much I truly loved acting and collaborating with people.
"I think the best thing I did was to make a show reel with my friends. We either got scenes from a show or wrote them ourselves, got a friend with a nice camera to shoot it and made our own work to show for ourselves. Having that footage is what got me shortlisted for the Heath Ledger Scholarship as I had no credits, only that reel. It helped me get an agent too."
Her first animated feature film, Rumble, is on track to be released in 2021. It's a comedy about a world where monsters wrestle as a professional sport.
"I'm really excited. It's my first animation film and I got to record with Will Arnett, who I am an enormous fan of," Viswanathan says.
"My Dad and I love Arrested Development so to be in a recording booth with him and hear his voice play off mine was a real trip. I did also do some voices on Bojack Horseman, so this is technically the second time we're voicing together."
Having worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, does she have any tales to tell?
"I think my biggest take away from working with big names is that the 'real deal' people are truly kind and good people. I am yet to work with a diva."
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