TERESA Palmer

The Australian actor gets candid about the ups and downs of marriage, prioritising motherhood over making movies, and splitting life between Adelaide and Los Angeles

- ANGELA MOLLARD

When Teresa Palmer is stopped in the street you’d imagine fans would want to congratulate her on her role in the Oscar-winning Hacksaw Ridge or her celebrated portrayal of jockey Michelle Payne in Ride Like a Girl. Failing that, they’d likely comment on her brood – after all, there are four of them, all with whimsical names such as Poet and Prairie (there’s five if you count her stepson, Isaac, who she calls her “bonus” child).

But these days movies and motherhood are a firm second to the one thing everyone wants to talk about: that conversation with her husband – producer and actor Mark Webber.

Back in February, Palmer invited her husband onto her podcast, The Mother Daze, which she hosts with friend Sarah Wright Olsen. They began talking about his upbringing with a teenage mother and heroin-addicted father then quickly moved into a dissection of their relationship. As the conversation grew from one episode to two, nothing was out of bounds, including the time they almost split, Webber’s drug relapse and their horrendous public argument snapped by paparazzi who believed they were rehearsing a scene for a forthcoming film they were starring in together. They weren’t. Palmer was pregnant with their first child and the fight was real.

“I’ve been stopped to discuss those episodes more than any other work I’ve ever done in my professional life,” she says incredulously. “People stop me with tears in their eyes, saying ‘thank you, thank you, thank you; his story, your story, your love, what you’ve gone through ... ’”