It has been 18 months since Isabel Lucas was last at Palm Beach. The northern beaches suburb of Sydney is both the location for In Style’s photo shoot and the backdrop for Home and Away, the Seven Network drama that made Lucas a household name. “I was feeling quite nostalgic coming here, seeing everything,” she says. After wrapping her three-and-a-half-year stint on the series – “I was getting itchy feet” – Lucas, who turns 23 this month, did the unexpected. Rather than chase stardom with a hit single or reality TV show, she dropped out of the limelight. Following a backpacking stint through Europe, Lucas spent two months on aid projects in Namibia. “[I was] in a foreign environment where no-one knew me, and I was just like everyone else,” she says. “I really needed that… to have a break and do something selfless.”

The week after our shoot, Lucas’s altruism hit the headlines when she joined other celebrities and surfers in Japan to disrupt the slaughter of dolphins and whales during their controversial annual hunt. “Hopefully shining the light on their deaths will save others,” Lucas said after the group was dramatically forced back to shore by Japanese fishermen.

The young star thanks her upbringing – in Melbourne, Switzerland, Kakadu and Cairns – for opening her eyes to the world. “You do see things from a different perspective,” she says of experiecing varied environments. Again based in Melbourne, Lucas recently finished shooting Daybreakers, a “futuristic vampire film” in which she co-stars with Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe. And now she also confesses to harmonising at home with muso boyfriend Georgy Byrne. So might she, in true post-soapie style (Kylie, Delta…), put out a record soon? “I don’t think so,” she laughs.

Article style quotes:

“I Love wearing what’s colorful or comfortable or makes me feel good”
“I like dressing up. I think all girls do”
“I’m not fanatical about any particular look… I like to mix it up”

(Check out scans of Isabel’s spread in our gallery below!)