It’s been a huge year for the 25-year-old Australian actor Danielle Macdonald. Now living in Los Angeles, she was home in June to promote her first lead in a feature film – Sundance’s heartwarming hip-hop hit Patti Cake$ – when her next role was announced: another title character, this time opposite Jennifer Aniston.

The film is an adaptation of Julie Murphy’s coming-of-age book Dumplin’, about a plus-size teen who wants to be a beauty queen. Aniston will play her mother. “The first time I saw [Aniston] I was like, ‘I was watching Friends on the plane – and now I’m here,’” Macdonald told Guardian Australia. “It’s weird. It’s always weird.”

As she talks about the books that excite her, and how to survive life in LA (“Don’t quit. You’ll get there … Eventually,” reads her Twitter bio), a clear theme emerges: young adult fiction has played a huge role in her life.

What’s nostalgia inducing

I can count on my fingers how many time I’ve seen my mum wear makeup. She’s just got naturally beautiful skin, eyes – she never really wore makeup, and I guess I didn’t either. When I was a teenager, it was fun to to try things out with friends, but it was always kind of special to me: when I put makeup on, it was for a special occasion. These days I’m obviously wearing it more for work – a lot more – so now not wearing makeup feels special, in a way.

You have to have thick skin [in LA], believe me. You’re gonna get a lot of rejection, and people are brutally honest – or sometimes just brutal … People will comment on how you look, people will comment on your skills, they’ll just comment on everything. But I look at it like, they’re not commenting on these things because it’s you. They’re commenting on them in regards to a vision that they have in their head, of a character. You can’t ever take it personally because it’s not personal … You can’t let these things get you down, you really can’t, because it’s every day. You just have to find the people that you love, and surround yourself with them.

Harry Potter is the first book that ever got me into reading. I had to read it in year 7, for school, and then I kept reading all of them. I escape into books, I love that feeling when they bring me into a whole other world, and I got to do that for the first time with Harry Potter. It’s still so special to me because I was so closed off to reading before that. I do still love fantasy, but I don’t know that anything will ever top Harry Potter – and I’m fine to leave it as No 1. I will never stop being excited about Harry Potter.

What’s thrilling

I love tinted moisturiser. I feel like I’m wearing nothing when I’m wearing it, which is how I like to feel, but it still provides me with coverage – and it’s got sunscreen in it so I’m not worried about getting burnt. I’m also one of those people who drags their hands over their face all the time. It’s good knowing that I’m not messing anything up.

The industry takes a lot of getting used to. For my job, I always have different hair and makeup and stuff, but in my day-to-day life, I like to keep it really simple … I have friends in LA who wear makeup every single day, never leave the house without a product … For a lot of people, it’s like their protective mask for the world. That’s their thing, and there is nothing wrong with that. My thing is just different. It’s probably just how I grew up.

I’m really excited about Dumplin’ right now, because I’m doing the movie. I take photos of books in book stores when I want to remember to get them, and I took a photo of Dumplin’ when I first saw it. The cover is just plain black, with a girl in a red dress with blond curly hair. Maybe it reminded me of me … and then when I heard about the film I was like, ‘Oh wait a minute – this is that book that I wanted to read!’

I read that book in hours, I couldn’t put it down, it’s just so relatable. I loved the relationships, I loved that these girls were just who they were – reading it makes you feel free to be you and just embrace your craziness … It’s about learning that everyone has their own issues, their own insecurities, their own challenges, and we have to be willing to listen to them to be more accepting.

What I keep going back to

Paw paw ointment. Not going to lie: my favourite thing in the world. I have sensitive skin so if I ever get allergic reactions I put it all over my face for the whole night, and next morning my skin is better again … I can be using a product for a year and then all of a sudden my skin decides to react to it, out of nowhere. Ridiculous. But that’s never happened with paw paw. It’s foolproof.

Also, I get dry skin – LA is really dry, a desert – so it’s something that I can just put on overnight and wake up with my skin feeling great.

I reread The Duff a lot. I love that book. Again, it’s a coming-of-age book – can you tell that I like this kind of stuff? … “Duff” stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend, and the point of the book is that everyone feels like that person sometimes, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. [Kody Keplinger] was 17 when she wrote it, and it felt like it was a teenager writing for a teenager, so I just really related to it. It’s funny, it’s witty, it’s heartwarming. It’s just really well written.

• Patti Cake$ is in cinemas now