Helen Buday

Several actresses had rejected the lead in Rolf De Heer's 2003 thriller "Alexandra's Project," as they felt the role of a wife seeking vengeance on her controlling husband via a graphic videotape would make too many physical and psychological demands. Having worked with De Heer two years earlier on "Dingo" (in which she played the wife of jazz nut Colin Friels, who dreams of going to Paris to meet hero Miles Davis), Helen Buday rose to the challenge to give a chilling depiction of pitiless hatred. Trained at the National Institute for Dramatic Art, Buday had debuted on television in the outback series "Five Mile Creek" in 1983 before coming to international attention as Savannah Nix, the leader of the children who save Mel Gibson from exposure in George Miller's 1985 sequel "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome." The following year, she played a 1930s innocent torn between academic Hugo Weaving and banker Sam Neill in "For Love Alone" and also appeared in the 1986 series "Land of Hope" and the 1989 teleplay "Shadow of the Cobra." However, Buday invariably opted for stage over screen offers, as she alternated between such dramatic classics as "The Three Sisters" and "A Doll's House" and musicals like "My Fair Lady" and "Cabaret." Consequently, she only rarely came before the cameras, for a reunion with Weaving on the 1992 short "Road to Alice" and a minor role in the 2001 vigilante saga "Let's Get Skase," along with TV offerings like "Water Rats," "Stingers," and "All Saints."