In 2003, Novakovic played Randa in the ABC mini-series Marking Time, a role which won her an AFI Award for "Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Television Drama or Comedy". As an actress, Novakovic's film credits in Australia include Blackrock, Strange Fits of Passion, The Monkey's Mask, Thunderstruck, Solo and the Serbian filmsOptimisti and Skinning. From 2007 to 2009, she played Tippi in TV series Satisfaction for Showtime Australia. She also appeared in Drag Me to Hell, Edge of Darkness, Devil, Burning Man, and Generation Um.... Her theatre credits in Australia include These People, Away and Strange Fruit at the Sydney Theatre Company; The Female of the Species at the Melbourne Theatre Company; Woyzeck, Criminology, Eldorado and Necessary Targets at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, Death Variations and Loveplay for B Sharp, Romeo and Juliet with Bell Shakespeare Company and Debris for Ride on Theatre. Novakovic runs her own independent theatre company, Ride On Theatre with co-director Tanya Goldberg. She was a producer and performer for the 2004 Ride on Theatre sell out season of LOVEPLAY at the Downstairs Belvoir Street Theatre, and the 2006 Green Room nominated production of Debris. In 2008, she translated, adapted and directed Fake Porno in Melbourne, which was invited to be part of the Powerhouse season in Brisbane in 2009, and also received three Green Room nominations including best production. Outside of Ride On, she wrote and directed with Melbourne's Black Lung Theatre for the critically acclaimed production of Sugar at the 2007 Adelaide Fringe Festival. In 2010, Novakovic received an AFI nomination for International Award for Best Actress for her role in Edge of Darkness. She is currently starring in an improvised theatrical production called The Blind Date project for the Sydney Festival. Novakovic landed the part of a beautiful prostitute-turned-law-student in Fox's series, Rake, starring Greg Kinnear. The show was cancelled in May 2014. She portrayed Clare Hitchens in The Hallow, a horror film set in Ireland and directed by Corin Hardy. In the episode “After Hours” of season two of Instinct, Novakovic plays a NYPD detective going undercover as an Australian. When her on screen partner suggests she needs a dialect coach, she replies in character, “My accent was perfect by the way.”
Ride On's late 2011 production was The Story of Mary MacLane by Herself, based on the writings of Mary MacLane, a self-proclaimed genius and recluse from the very early 20th century in Butte, Montana. Novakovic wrote the piece with musician Tim Rogers and Tanya Goldberg as director. They received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts for development of the show with support from Malthouse Theatre, Merrigong Theatre Co. and Griffin Theatre Company, as well as production funding from Art NSW. A comprehensive MacLane anthology – Human Days: A Mary MacLane Reader – debuted in Australia with a Foreword by Novakovic in late November 2011. The second volume, A Quite Unusual Intensity of Life: A Mary MacLane Companion, also issued under the Petrarca Press logo, is to be published in 2015. The two volumes will total more than 1200 pages.
