Teresa Palmer is an Australian actress. She made her film debut in the suicide drama 2:37. She appeared in The Grudge 2, and was seen in December Boys alongside Daniel Radcliffe. She starred with Adam Sandler in the children’s fantasy Bedtime Stories in 2008. Her upcoming films include The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, with Nicolas Cage and Jay Baruchel, Young Americans, as Topher Grace’s love interest, and I Am Number Four.

Teresa was born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia. She is the only child of Kevin Palmer, an investor, and Paula Sanders, a former nurse. She has a stepmother, Kaaren Palmer, two half-sisters and two stepbrothers, who lived with her father. Her parents divorced when she was three. She stated to Interview that she “came from rather humble beginnings“. She lived in public housing with her mother, and spent time with her father in Adelaide Hills. She grew up on a farm. Teresa had a “tough upbringing” due to her mother’s manic depression, she stated in Harper’s Bazaar.

Teresa was a student at Mercedes College, a Catholic day school, and won a local casting audition, “Search for a Movie Star“, in 2003. Her first acting job was dressing up as Strawberry Shortcake on weekends for promotions in shopping centres near Adelaide. She went to acting classes for a couple of years and did a few television commercials. She was a fast food attendant at Hungry Jack’s in Rundle Mall in 2005, and was working at a clothing retailer, Cotton On, selling T-shirts.

After graduating from high school, Teresa got a call from her local agent about appearing in a student film. The director had seen her head shot on the acting agency’s website and wanted her to be in the movie. Palmer thought that she would work in an animal rescue service, and eventually open her own animal welfare agency. She was accepted into university to study teaching and was taking a course on journalism, but had always dreamt of acting. Palmer quit university to work on the film.