The luckiest girl in the whole weird world: Emily Browning is the fortunate actress picked to be the quite unfortunate Violet Baudelaire. Read here what it was like to play make-believe in the bizarro land of Lemony Snicket. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Emily Browning is like a little fairy. She has perfect skin that's as smooth as a porcelain teacup. Her eyes are warm and beautiful, like the ones on that fancy collectors' edition doll your morn would never let you play with.

These elegant, soft qualities likely are why Emily is a working actress, even though she's from Melbourne, Australia, which is about 17 hours on a plane from Hollywood. This month, she's in the big-time film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, playing opposite Jim Carrey as the evil Count Olaf.

"I've read all 10 books and I loved them!" says Emily, who's sweet 16. "I sent a tape to America, but I didn't hear anything for like six months. Then I got a call and was told to fly out the next morning. I read for the director in an American accent. He said, 'Emily, you are Violet!' and I got the part."

If you haven't read Lemony Snicket, then run out right now and buy the series. The books are dark like Harry Potter but not as complicated. "I play the sister Violet Baudelaire, and Violet is the optimist. She stands up to people," says Emily, while a stylist fiddles with her super-shiny brown hair. "But it was hard playing Violet because she's very serious and everyone else is so funny."

Emily, too, is somewhat serious but in a mature, not-a-teenage-spaz kind of way. This is perhaps why she played the wickedly smart Violet so perfectly, even though she says it was a tough movie to make. "We go to our Aunt Josephine's house that's supposed to be freezing, but the set was 100 degrees and I was in a woolen coat," she remembers. "The director would say, 'You should be shivering,' but I was pouring with sweat."

Not only that but, as Violet, she's supposed to be afraid of the funniest man in show biz. "It took forever to do scenes because Jim Carrey is so funny that we would stand there with our shoulders shaking because we could not stop laughing," says Emily. "Finally, Jim said, 'Emily, do you have a dog?' and I'm like, 'Oh, um, yeah,' and he yells, 'Well I'm stomping on its head now!' But instead of looking shocked I was practically peeing my pants laughing."

In much of the movie, Emily is holding a real baby. But there was too much action and nutty things happening for a real baby to be in all the scenes, so she carried fake rubber babies. "I liked the fake babies--they're creepy!" she says, scrunching up her perfect little pixie nose. "We named them all. The practice baby was Scar because it was all dirty with hair falling out and missing fingers! And there's the shocked one we called Winston, and one called Dave. There was one with a face like it's crying, and we called that one Joy. These babies look so real, and just to mess with everyone I would drop it and watch them gasp!"

Emily has a too-cool Aussie accent, so everything sounds refined, even when she's talking about her SpongeBob SquarePants obsession. "I went to this Hollywood party last night, and there were so many stars, like Nicole Kidman and Denzel Washington. But the only person I got excited about was the guy who does the voice of SpongeBob!" says Emily. "I have slippers, T-shirts, key rings, plush toys and ... everything. I'm just a little obsessed with Spongebob!"

And we're obsessed with Emily, our new favorite up-and-coming Hollywood actress. "I was thinking America was going to be this wildly weird place, but it's not. It's like home," she says, as sweet as sweet comes. If fairies exist, bets are on that they're like Emily Browning!