Back to school for Isabel Lucas

RISING Hollywood starlet Isabel Lucas returned home to the Far North this week for rest, relaxation and to say thanks to her former school.

The Transformers 2 star, who shot to fame on Australian soap drama Home and Away, is filming an Australian movie in Melbourne and decided to use a five day break in her schedule to come to Cairns and visit family.

But Lucas yesterday found time to return to St Monica’s College, the school where she spent most of her high school years, to personally thank students who earlier this year staged a fundraising dance to benefit an orphanage in India that she sponsors.

Lucas wrote to the school’s deputy principal Terry Power late last year asking for support and this year’s student council decided to act, raising $2000 for the orphanage, which cares for and educates children who have been affected by leprosy.

She yesterday spoke to the student council, thanking them for their support, before she was mobbed by excited students as she walked across the school grounds.

It was her second school visit in Cairns after thanking students at Redlynch State College on Thursday for their support.

Lucas is in Australia after filming the upcoming movie Transformers 2.

She said executive producer Steven Spielberg and director Michael Bay were strict about information from the movie not being leaked, but she did confirm she plays a character called Alice, opposite Shia LeBeouf’s character Sam Witwicky.

But she said the purpose of yesterday’s visit was to raise awareness of the orphanage, which she first became involved with while on-set in India.

“I was filming in India and in the storyline the parents adopt an orphan,” she said. “For me, it was important to meet with the children.”

She yesterday told The Cairns Post she had a busy few months ahead with an Australian film titled Kin, a movie titled Day Breakers and a small part in the HBO mini-series The Pacific, part of which was filmed at Port Douglas.

Lucas is scheduled to return to Melbourne today.

For more information about the orphanage, visit udayan.org