Abbie Cornish - meet Nicole Kidman's greatest rival

When Abbie Cornish was growing up in deepest, darkest Australia she could never have imagined that one day she would end up body popping in a London nightclub with Madonna. By day she was playing a modern girl obsessed with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Madonna's film about Wallis Simpson, W.E; by night she was ruling the dancefloor. 'M [as she is known to intimates] travels with her dancers so they were on set a lot. They're some of the best in the world, so it was great to train with them and going to nightclubs with them was amazing. They took me to some really cool spots where there were break circles and everyone is really on their game, just drinking water'

Abbie and Madonna clearly formed quite a bond. 'We all went to Hyde Park to see Jay-Z performing - me and M and Lourdes - and it was an amazing show.' But head-spins aside, how did Abbie find working with Madonna? 'Making film is a relatively new thing for her. But she's a natural film-maker and a natural leader; she really embraces it and I loved watching her soaking up all this knowledge about film-making and the environment of a film set. Maybe there were some adjustments she had to make but she's really smart so, yeah, it was great.'

Brought up on a farm in Lochinvar, New South Wales, Abbie 'grew up very connected to the earth and animals, ducks and chickens and goats and kangaroos. Animals are all about instinct, and I feel I engaged with that very young; communicating outside of language.'

Instinct is clearly key to the Cornish approach, and to make sure she never forgets it she has had dark, smudgy lines tattooed down the middle of her big toes, exposed in gold gladiator sandals when we meet. They catch my eye because everything else about her is pristine, from her glossy caramel hair to her slightly preppy raspberry Prada cardigan. She lines up her feet to show them off: 'For me they mean instinct. I feel like instinct has been the driving force of my entire life, and they remind me to follow my instinct.'

It would be easy to scoff, but Miss Cornish's instinct has served her well, parlaying into a hugely successful acting career that has taken her right to the heart of Hollywood. She didn't train in drama, yet onscreen Abbie, now 28, seduced a pre-Avatar Sam Worthington and the whole of Australia with her film debut, the prize-winning indie production Somersault (2004). She went on to play contemporary roles, such as a heroin addict in Candy (2006) opposite Heath Ledger, as well as showing an innate feeling for period parts such as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star, and the lady-in-waiting Bess Throckmorton in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, in which she was ravished by Clive Owen's Sir Walter Raleigh, much to the chagrin of Cate Blanchett's queen.

Indeed, Abbie was said to be something of a siren off-screen as well, after forming a relationship with actor Ryan Phillippe, Reese Witherspoon's ex-husband. The pair met while filming Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss and, after his divorce, became a deliberately low-key Hollywood couple for three years. In late 2010, however, Abbie chopped off her hair into a dramatic bob - and we all know what that means. 'Yeah, I'm single at the moment,' she says. And the haircut said it all? 'Someone said to me once there's so much history in your hair, it contains so much I didn't think of it like that when I had my hair cut, but I guess, yeah, it feels fresh.' Another action of instinct. 'Yeah, but I researched it first. I took a road trip up north with my friend Janie and I took a long bath and read all these hair magazines and when I came out she was laughing at me because she said all she could hear was tear, rip, tear, rip as I tore out all these hairstyles I liked'

The only time her instinct has failed her might be in choosing to do her latest movie Sucker Punch, Zack Snyder's almost universally derided camp, kinky action fantasy, described by The New York Times as 'a fantasia of misogyny'. Abbie and her co-stars Jena Malone (Donnie Darko), Emily Browning (A Series of Unfortunate Events) and Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical) spend the entire film clad in bustiers and stockings, toting video-game guns in consequence-free orgies of violence. What did she think she was signing up for? Something darker and edgier, it seems. 'Originally the script was rated R [over 18] so it was much more intense and more layered. It's the same film I imagined it would be, only it's now rated a PG-13.' Some subtlety has been lost, then? 'I know some people watch it and don't see all of the layers and symbolism and metaphors. I see so much symbolism in it... There's a dichotomy between how it looks and what the content is. It's like when you read a Keats poem' - oh no, is she really going there? - 'and he mentions death and a flower in one sentence, and that juxta-position is what allows the poem to get under your skin so much? To me that's what's interesting about this film.' Well, you have to commend her for having the chutzpah to compare Sucker Punch to a sonnet.

How did she feel about wearing revealing burlesque outfits in every scene? 'True, it was a bit of an adventure But filming Sucker Punch we were working out so much we could pretty much eat whatever our bodies needed. Every Wednesday we would have Cheat Night when we'd all go out for dinner and order every dessert on the menu. Whoever was in town was welcome, too. Oscar Isaac and Jon Hamm [who have supporting roles in the film] came along sometimes.' Her Cheat Night favourite was anything containing caramel, and she insists that she does not have problems with food, despite the endless pressure for actresses to remain trim. 'I eat pretty healthily, I'm already on a good trip with food there' Because of growing up close to animals, she became a committed vegetarian at 13, and favours raw, organic, macrobiotic food. 'My favourite thing at the moment is a Thai laksa with tofu and noodles, obviously made without fishpaste I don't feel affected by that pressure [to be thin]. I feel very comfortable in my own body. My mum was a great mentor for that.'

Abbie grew up the second of five children, and her parents divorced when she was 16. It sounds chaotic, but she credits her parents with being 'very present, very connected people. My mum, for example, has a lot of light and energy around her.' I read she grew up Catholic. 'No. My parents don't follow a religion but they have a strong sense of faith and belief and spirituality. I'm interested in lots of different religions; I love visiting the churches in London.' Indeed, even filming inside them sometimes, such as on Elizabeth: The Golden Age. 'Although that felt slightly wrong, taking a whole crew inside a church.'

For my money, Abbie's most powerful film to date is Candy, in which she co-starred with Heath Ledger as a young couple deeply in love but also addicted to heroin: an Australian Requiem for a Dream, yet so searing it feels original and true. 'I haven't watched that since Heath died,' she says quietly. 'Making that film was an incredible experience for me, and I think it was for him, too. It was such a wonderful story to indulge ourselves in together. It's based on a true story, and the preparation for it had to be done on the streets. You can't get that stuff from textbooks. We had to go to the places these people lived' - as well as rehab and methadone centres - 'almost like a reporter would. We documented and we took pictures. Heath was a real artist, he was into music and photography and art and film -making, everything. He was so generous. Before he passed away he had this idea of building a space in New York where artists could come together and create and collaborate. He was all about art and the creation of art and if someone didn't have a platform to make art he would try to provide one.'