Rachel Griffiths: A star in Glenda Jackson's corset

A native of Melbourne, Australia, Rachel Griffiths, 34, first came to our attention in Muriel's Wedding. Since then, the actress has appeared in such films as Hilary and Jackie, for which she earned an Oscar nomination, Blow Dry, Divorcing Jack and Blow. She also stars in Six Feet Under on Channel 4 and plays the wife of Dennis Quaid's baseball-playing character in her latest film, The Rookie. Griffiths lives in both Sydney and Los Angeles.

Have you been to a baseball game?

I went to one game. It was wonderful, but it was a cultural event that felt alien to me. I think you can't really connect with it if you haven't grown up passionately aware of the stories of the game.

You play an American in The Rookie. Was it hard to mask your accent?

You don't have to mask an Australian accent. Unlike an American accent, which has such strong sounds, the Australian accent is pretty neutral. Like beige. You can just put colour on top.

Six Feet Under was a huge hit in the States and the UK. How has that changed your life?

That's a question that history answers. Right now my life is the same. I live in the same house. I have the same people in my life. I'm earning the same amount of money. So nothing is really different.

Were you surprised by how well it has been received?

Yeah. I knew it would be a critical success because the material was so brilliant. I knew it would find its hip, urban, New York-type market pretty quickly. But what I'm surprised about is how big it is in middle America! Much of the show is about God and the questions in life that you can look at once you have death as a character. I think for all its porno clips and drugs and rock 'n' roll, people know it's not really about that.

So, are you one of those hip, urban people you were talking about?

Well, I'm hardly going to turn up here in Ugg boots on a press day. But recently, there was a photo taken of me in Ugg boots and pyjama bottoms at Starbucks at 6am. I'm not really interested in being fashionable.

Have you ever been mistaken for anybody else?

Juliette Lewis quite a bit – but it doesn't bother me at all. I met her once and she is tiny. So if you met her in real life, you would never mistake us. The first time I saw her on screen was a spin out. I was watching Cape Fear with my best friend, and she comes on and she was like me at 14! It was seriously weird.

Do you feel the pressure to be thin in Hollywood?

No, but I work out for my mental health. Last week, I started filming at 5am and finished around 1.30 the next day. You can't do that unless you're fit and have a healthy mind. So, I've got into fitness. At home in Australia, I don't work out because I run down to the beach and surf for an hour. So it's not exercise – it's just like, go and get into that ocean!

Does it bother you when people comment on your clothes?

You have to have a very narrow field of interest to end up spending your life writing about clothes. What I do is bigger than that.

Do you get starstruck at all?

I'm starstruck by my heroes. I met Maggie Smith once and I was speechless. I've never felt so stupid in my life.

Has meeting a star ever been disappointing?

I didn't expect them to be anything. Why would I think their job was to fulfil my expectations? They probably don't measure up to all the fantasy movies you've seen them in. It's not their job.

At what point did you feel you'd arrived?

One of the first was in Britain. I'm at this place called Angels for a costume fitting. This woman called Janty, who since has won the Oscar for Gladiator and is now one of my dearest friends, hands me this corset to try on and inside was Glenda Jackson's name. Then she brought me boots and they had Vanessa Redgrave's name on. So I'm standing there in Vanessa Redgrave's boots with Glenda Jackson's corset on and, at that moment, I thought I'd arrived.

Who are your heroes?

I'm obsessed with Frank Lloyd Wright and Jackson Pollock. They are giant artists in my imagination. They are flawed as people, but as artists they are so courageous.

What is your proudest achievement?

I don't think I have done it yet. I am most proud of the fact that I have friends from when I was four. I have a beautiful, supportive family. And there are a lot of reasons to become an arsehole. It's not like I haven't changed. It's hard to be under the pressures of this business and not change. But I think they are proud of me for not becoming an arsehole!

'The Rookie' opens on 11 October