The following article was taken from Girlfriend magazine a little less then a year

She's a long way from Canberra, but the bright lights of the big city are shining down on Lara Cox. This former shy girl talks to GF about kissing Callan Mulvey on an off the screen, leaving home and becoming a star.

"My life just wasn't meant to be like this," Lara, 20 (now 21), says smiling sweetly. "I mean, I'm glad it has. I don't regret a thing. I just had no idea I'd be doing this. I was supposed to go to uni to study primamry school education. I've always wanted to look after children and that's pretty much where I was heading."
But this fresh faced beauty left Canberra and her family behind after finishing year 12, almost two and a half years ago and moved to Sydney. In Sydney she made a home for herself and got her first chance to star on the small screen, playing Anita Scheppers on the ABC's popular teenage drama, Heartbreak High.
"I was finishing year 12 and modelling part-time for an agency in Sydney. They heard about the audition and asked me if I wanted to go. It just happened from there," she explains. "It was quite daunting at first. I came from this little place in Canberra where I knew everyone. then I moved up here and all I knoew were the people on Heartbreak. I felt quite alone for the first few months. I use to ring my mum all the time and cry over the phone"

Callan Crazy

Acting isn't the only thing keeping Lara in Sydney. Her on-screen boyfriend, Drazic, played by Callan Mulvey, has swept her of her feet and the cute couple have become inseparable, both on-screen and off-screen since their characters became a love item. Their rocky relationship on-screen has been happening for a couple of years, but in real-life the two have been together for over a year.
"We both noticed each other and were like 'Hey, he's pretty cool, she's pretty cool'. I went home and told my mum and dad about him and he was telling his friends about me. Bit it wasn't like we both went, 'Oh yeah, we're going to be together'. We just really liked each other," she gushes. "then our characters got together on-screen and we had to do every scene together. He was giving me lifts to work. then he'd give me a lift home and we'd grab something to eat. It was slow to start because both of us were a bit scared of it not working out. but we knew we had to do something about it because we liked each other, we liked each other a lot!'
The on-screen romance between Drazic and Anita took a fair bit of practice. "Neither of us had ever done an on-screen kiss before, so they made us rehearse it. We had to do it in motions. It was like 'Then you'll lean forward, then you'll tilt your head.' We went on set for the kiss and it was so nerve-racking, we both just stood there going 'Omigod, what are we going to do?' The director had to make it a closed set so that we could practise and we were terrible. We were so embarrassed, we kept going red and getting all shy. Then we went off-set and said 'Look, we can do this, this is easy' and we went on and just did it!"

Former Shy Girl

So when it was time for their first real-life kiss, the romance of a couple's first kiss "wasn't quite there." But playing one of the most popular characters on Heartbreak High and having babelicious Callan hanging off her arm has forced this former shy girl to get used to stardom. "Doing Heartbreak and all the publicity that comes with it have really helped me," she confides. "I used to be painfully shy. I was so in my shell and couldn't talk that easily to people."
Being a celebrity couple certainly has its disadvantages. Going out to dinner or to the movies together is difficult unless Lara and Callan feel like making conversation with fans wherever they go. "I mean it's cool, I don't mind it. I usually stop and have a little chat," she says.
Lara and Callan's time at home together in Sydney's northern beaches is what they enjoy the most. "It's when we're at home that we can actually be just Cal and Lara," she says. "It's funny you know. Every girl says to me, 'Omigod, you're so lucky to be going out with Drazic, he's so good looking'. That to me is Cal's surface. It's not the inside, and it's the inside that I love about him.