Once Upon A Time...

Actress, Mother of Three and Married to a Superhero – Elsa Pataky Is Living the Real-life Fairytale

- Justine Cullen

THERE’S A HUGE, APPARENTLY MANIACAL DRAGONFLY hovering around my head as I sit down and attempt to begin to interview Elsa Pataky in a cosy nook of the Byron Bay mansion where our cover shoot is taking place. I spend the first couple of minutes of our time together jerking my head around awkwardly in a futile attempt to avoid a creature that, with each passing second, appears more and more like something straight out of Jurassic Park. Eventually it changes course and moves on to Pataky. As she glances up with a benign smile and casually waves her bejewelled fingers elegantly in the air, my insect nemesis suddenly appears less Dragonfly Rex and more like one of those birds fluttering above Cinderella’s head as she gets ready for the ball. The Carpenters’ “(They Long To Be) Close to You” does not start playing in the background, but it may as well have.

Pataky is the sort of person that songs like that are written about – a sort of gypset Disney princess, all effervescent sunshine and good humour, with a contagious smile and eyes that radiate a wholesome openness but with just enough spirit to indicate she probably wouldn’t be a boring person to have a drink with. You can see how she managed to nab Our Chris Hemsworth, seven years her junior, who put a ring on it just months after they met. You can see why, according to rumour, ex-boyfriend Adrien Brody bought her a 19th-century castle in upstate New York. At this point I, along with the entire ELLE crew, would probably buy her one, too – or at least do a whip around for a small studio apartment in St Kilda should she need it. It’s not just the whole radiating-sunshine-from-every-pore thing. She speaks five languages (Spanish, French, Romanian, Italian, English), she’s fitter than her husband, she’s up for anything (including, on this shoot, riding