Rachael Taylor Australian Actress Known for Bottle Shock

Early life

Rachael May Taylor was born on 11 July 1984 in Launceston, Tasmania. She went to Trevallyn Primary School and then Riverside High School. At sixteen she moved to Sydney hoping to work as an actress, but she came back to Launceston to finish her secondary education. She later studied history and politics at the University of Sydney, leaving the course in 2006.

Career

Taylor modelled as a teenager and won the title of Miss Teen Tasmania in 1998. Her screen debut was in The Mystery of Natalie Wood, a 2004 television serial directed by Peter Bogdanovich. She then appeared in the television film Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure in 2005, playing the actress Catherine Oxenberg, and in the horror films Man-Thing (2005) and See No Evil (2006). On Australian television she played Sasha Forbes in the drama series headLand, a role that earned her a Logie Award nomination for Most Popular New Female Talent in April 2006.

Her highest-profile film role of the period came in 2007 in Transformers, in which she played the signals analyst Maggie Madsen opposite Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. She did not return for the sequel. In 2008 she took a leading part in Shutter, an American horror-thriller remade from a Thai film and co-starring Joshua Jackson, and also appeared in Bottle Shock. The next years mixed Australian and international projects: Cedar Boys and the comedy Splinterheads in 2009, the Australian romantic drama Summer Coda in 2010, and a signing to the HBO comedy Washingtonienne.

In 2011 she had a major role in the Australian film Red Dog, joined the cast of the short-lived remake of Charlie's Angels, and starred in the science-fiction thriller The Darkest Hour, directed by Chris Gorak. She also had a recurring part as the obstetrician Dr Lucy Fields on Grey's Anatomy. In 2012 she took a supporting role in Any Questions for Ben?, a comedy made by Working Dog Productions. Critics found the film underwhelming, but her performance was singled out for praise. From 2012 to 2013 she starred in the drama 666 Park Avenue, and in 2014 she appeared in the NBC series Crisis, which ran for a single season. She also took a supporting part in The Loft, an English-language remake of a 2008 thriller, alongside the Australian actress Isabel Lucas.

Her best-known television work began in 2015 with Jessica Jones, set in the Marvel television universe, in which she played the title character's closest friend. She returned to the role as a voice in Luke Cage in 2016, in The Defenders in 2017, and in the later seasons of Jessica Jones, which ran into 2019. Other screen work in these years includes the crime drama Gold in 2016, in which she played Rachel Hill, the science-fiction film ARQ the same year, and the Australian comedy-drama Ladies in Black in 2018, where she played Fay. In 2019 she appeared in Finding Steve McQueen as Molly Murphy, working with Travis Fimmel, Forest Whitaker and William Fichtner.

Taylor has also lent her voice to a public cause. In 2014 she partnered with White Ribbon Australia, a campaign that works to end men's violence against women.

Public roles

Her association with White Ribbon Australia began in 2014, when she became a partner of the organisation in its campaign against violence against women.

Recognition

The only formal recognition recorded for her is the Logie Award nomination for Most Popular New Female Talent for headLand in 2006. Several of her titles, among them Transformers, Grey's Anatomy and Jessica Jones, count among the most widely documented productions in her filmography, with entries in dozens of language editions of the online encyclopedia.