Early life
Fisher was born in Muscat, Oman to Scottish parents and moved with her family to Perth, Western Australia, where she grew up, when she was nine months old. Her name, after a Scottish island, is pronounced "Eye-Lah"; she has two brothers. Fisher has said that she had a "great" upbringing with a "very outdoorsy life". She began appearing in commercials on Australian television at the age of nine, before going on to win roles in popular childrens' television shows Bay City and Paradise Beach. She later became known for playing Shannon Reed on the popular TV soap opera Home and Away.
Career
At the age of eighteen, with the help of her mother, she wrote two teen novels (Bewitched and Seduced by Fame) that became bestsellers. From 1994 to 1997 she played the role of Shannon Reed on the hit Aussie soap Home and Away. After leaving the popular soap to pursue new challenges Isla enrolled at prestigious theatre and arts training school in Paris, and went on to appear in pantomime in the UK. She also toured with Darren Day in the Summer Holiday musical, and appeared in a London theatre production called Cosi. Isla's ambition was always to progress onto the big screen however, and in 2002 she had a part in in the film version of Scooby-Doo as Mary-Jane, Shaggy's love interest, and subsequently was taken on by an American agent. A larger role in Wedding Crashers in 2005 won her the Breakthrough Performance Award at the MTV Movie Awards. While promoting Wedding Crashers (co-starring Owen Wilson), she was officially crowned the 1000th guest on Australian talk show Rove on August 2, 2005. She entered the set ahead of Wilson, winning the title by two meters.
In 2006, Fisher starred as Becca, a Manhattan party host in the offbeat relationship drama London alongside Jessica Biel, Chris Evans and Jason Statham. Her most recent role is in The Lookout, a thriller co-starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Goode. She will next appear in The Pleasure of Your Company, co-starring Jason Biggs, Hot Rod, opposite Andy Samberg, Definitely, Maybe, with Rachel Weisz and Abigail Breslin, and will have a voice role in Horton Hears a Who! Fisher has also co-written a treatment for a script entitled Groupies with Amy Poehler, as well as another project entitled Cookie Clean. She will also have a speaking role in the upcoming The Simpsons Movie although her role is currently unknown.
Personal life
Fisher resides in Los Angeles, as well as London and Europe, with her fiance, English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. She has converted to Orthodox Judaism in advance of her marriage to Cohen, who is Jewish.[6][7] As of March 2007, the two have not yet set a date for their wedding.[8]
It has been speculated that she is pregnant with Cohen's child, but no official statements have been made yet.
Fisher has said that her "sensibility is Australian" and that she has a "laid-back attitude to life" that she feels is "very Australian". Her mother and siblings live and work in Athens, Greece, while her father lives in Frankfurt, Germany.
