Born in Oman to Scottish parents who moved with her to Australia during her childhood, she began appearing in television commercials and came to prominence for her portrayal of Shannon Reed on the Australian soap opera Home and Away — , for which she received two Logie Award nominations.
Fisher had a recurring role on the fourth and fifth seasons of the sitcom Arrested Development — and has starred in the comedy drama series Wolf Like Me since She has authored two young adult novels and the Marge in Charge book series.
From to , she was married to English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen , with whom she has three children. She appeared in lead roles in school productions such as Little Shop of Horrors. Fisher made her first on-screen appearances in commercials on Australian television at the age of 9, and made her professional acting debut in with two guest-starring roles in the children's television shows Bay City and Paradise Beach.
At 18, with her mother's help, she published two teen novels, Bewitched and Seduced by Fame. Between and , Fisher played Shannon Reed, a young, unconfident bisexual woman who develops anorexia , on the Australian soap opera Home and Away. In a interview with The Sun-Herald , she spoke of her success and experiences on the show: "I would be stupid to let it go to my head because it could all end tomorrow and I would just fade back into obscurity.
I like working on Home and Away but it's a heavy workload so I get stressed out a lot. We work about 15 hours a day, including the time it takes to learn lines. I know a lot of people work those sort of hours but I think we really feel it because most of us are young and fairly inexperienced. But I am very grateful because it is good experience. It's like an apprenticeship, but we do it in front of 20 million people so all our mistakes are up for the world to see. Fisher transitioned to Hollywood in , with the part of the love interest of a cowardly slacker Shaggy Rogers in the live-action film Scooby-Doo.
