Grateful is a word which comes up a few times as we chat. It's just three days after Netflix announced the cancellation of Santa Clarita Diet - the show which brought Hewson to the US - and the young actor is still soaking in the bittersweet moment.

"I personally feel like it's an experience that I'm going to really treasure for a long time," Hewson says.

"It changed a lot of things for me and brought me out to the States properly.

''Where I am now wouldn't have happened without Santa Clarita Diet and I'll miss making it but I'm thankful that it happened."

It's just one experience for which Hewson is grateful. The time spent in Canberra at the end of every year to regroup and reflect also makes the gratitude list.

But it's Hewson's experience as a non-binary person - someone who identifies as "they" rather than "he" or "she" - that resonates.

It's been just over a year since Hewson "came out" in the professional world and they weren't convinced Hollywood was ready for an actor who didn't adopt a gender-specific pronoun.

"I was fully prepared to stay closeted and keep it a secret up until very recently," Hewson says.

"It's really only in the last year that I've realised that there is space within the industry and within the public sphere to be myself and be open about that so now, I'm slowly starting to speak more plainly about it."

Hewson counts themselves lucky to live in a time where they can be completely accepted in both their personal and professional life.

"It's a feedback loop, I think, in that one informs the other. When we see a difference in media we're more likely to accept it in our lives and when we accept it in our lives we also want to see more of it in media.

"It becomes a big spiral that continues in terms of seeing different types of people and wanting to see different kinds of people and being excited about that both in my line of work and out of my line of work."

Hewson uses that word a lot. Work. Consciously I know that Hewson goes to work, just like the rest of us. And yet watching them demonstrate their craft it's easy to forget that it is just a job.

And for Hewson it's a job which they say they wouldn't be able to do if it wasn't for their upbringing here in Canberra. They are quick to acknowledge Canberra Youth Theatre for forming the basis of everything they know about acting. "Literally, everything".

"I didn't go to university. I studied theatre in high school and worked with Canberra Youth Theatre and The Street Theatre and other theatre organisations in Canberra and that's how I got my training," Hewson says.

"The skill set that I learnt was how I am able to do my job now. Obviously, you are always learning new things but that foundational teaching was essential to how I continue to do my job."

Looking back on old theatre stories, it's easy to see Hewson showed talent even back then; not just as an actor but as a playwright.

In a 2013 Canberra Times article about new works written by Canberra Youth Theatre's talent, a 17-year-old Hewson was described as a "rare young writer" for their play Bona Mors.

"A recurrent theme was fear of mortality. It requires bravery on a writer's part to take on a taboo like death but Olivia has done it in a tongue-in-cheek way," then artistic director Karla Conway said.

"She doesn't dumb down her writing just to engage younger actors. Instead, she writes powerful dialogue that encourages those actors to display their depth and sophistication.''

It seems storytelling was always going to play some role in Hewson life. They - along with their brothers - were encouraged to read and draw, and were regularly taken to plays and films.

"Storytelling was a large part of our lives but we were given freedom to interact with it to whatever extent we wanted," the Canberran says.

"Me and my brothers were always encouraged by our parents to follow our interests as they occurred to us and ... I'm very fortunate that I grew up in a family that both wanted to support me in that, and was able to."

For Hewson, Canberra is like a touchstone they return to at the end of every year. Sure, it's a chance to spend Christmas and New Year with friends and family, but the time at home provides more than just an opportunity to catch up.

"It's always really nice, as the year closes to be able to come back to where I grew up and touch base with my family in the city that I am from and just sit in that space again and feel how the year has been. I look forward to that time; it's very reflective and homey.

"But I'm conscious that it's been a long stretch of time since I worked in Australia and I love to be able to come back and do some work if I can. But I do miss it. I miss the landscape, and I miss the coffee. You know, I am very greedy; I would like to be able to have both."

At 23, Hewson comes across with a confidence beyond their years. They're well spoken and articulate, and when it comes to their career, they have carefully considered what sort of roles they want to portray.

In Homecoming Queens they played Chloe, a young post-mastectomy breast cancer survivor who is trying to find herself while dealing with her own mortality. In Before I Fall, Hewson took on Anna, an outspoken lesbian who says high school is a "heteronormative hell".

But it was the three years Hewson played Santa Clarita Diet's Abby Hammond alongside Drew Barrymore, Timothy Olyphant and Skyler Gisondo, that got them noticed.

In some ways it's easy to see parts of Hewson in the character. Abby has the self-confidence and strength to function after her life is turned on its head when her mother (Barrymore) unexpectedly becomes undead. While Hewson is not likely to face similar challenges in her own life, it does take a certain self-confidence to move halfway around the world, alone, to pursue an acting career at 19.

It's a move which has paid off. Santa Clarita Diet ran for three seasons and its most recent season ranked at 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. The charming 'zom-com' took a different look at the classic zombie plotline, and with a brilliantly witty script, was a creative dream for the young actor.

What's more, Hewson had a blast with fellow cast members Barrymore, Olyphant and Gisondo.

"We're very lucky that we also had an amazing team of writers and producers and supporting cast and a crew that consistently came back to play with us every year so it was a beautiful environment to be a part of," they say.

"And I really am very attached to Abby and very protective of her. She's inspirational to me in a lot of ways because she has such a strong sense of right and wrong and is so funny and snarky and unafraid of a challenge and very aware of her own strength. What a gift it has been to play a character like that."

Abby is the perfect example of the sort of characters Hewson aims to play. The actor admits to being drawn to characters who either have a strong sense of who they are, or grow into having a strong sense of self during their story arc.

"Whether that be a sense of confidence or a sense of justice or just a sense of safety in one's own identity. I'm very attracted [to characters] who either know who they are or figure it out," Hewson explains.

It's a formula which audiences can expect to see Hewson take on again later this year.

They jokingly say that "this is my year" but with two films due out in December it's hard to disagree.

Hewson has just wrapped up filming the Netflix film Let It Snow in Canada. They star alongside Sabrina's Kiernan Shipka in what is an adaptation of the bestselling book by John Green (of Fault in our Stars fame), Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle.

Hewson is tight-lipped about the teen flick - " I don't know how much I'm supposed to say" - but describes the character as someone who is very aware of who she is.

"Her struggles in the movie extend from knowing what her needs are but not having them met by the people around her."

Meanwhile Hewson's character in the upcoming Jay Roach film about former Fox News chief Roger Ailes and his sexual misconduct allegations, is just as self-assured, but "in very different ways".

As one of the few fictional characters in the film - which also stars Margot Robbie, Nicole Kidman and John Lithgow - Hewson had the freedom to play the role without working to the image of a real person.

"She's interesting because she is complicit in a lot of the issues and problems surrounding Fox News and that institution because she works there," Hewson says.

"But she also has this sense of justice in her personal life which is really interesting because she is a character that feels really strongly that Roger Ailes ought to face consequences.

"So that was an interesting moral dilemma to play with as an actor because this is someone who feels very strongly about one moral issue but not about others."

With both films due out in December, it's bound to be a busy month for Hewson. And after that? "We'll see what happens".

The actor - still very much a proud Canberran - is loving life in front of an audience, whether it is via a camera or on stage. Hewson sees life as an open door, so whatever happens next they're all in.

"One of the things I love about my job is that it offers me an opportunity to step into different people and different spaces and different kinds of work in every new thing that I do. I'm just looking forward to the surprises I'm going to have."