Sarandon was in Parramatta in Sydney's west on Saturday night as the head juror for the 26th Tropfest short film festival, and the actress took time to reflect on her career as she walked the black carpet.

"You know I've done everything wrong so I can't give advice about anything because I've not played by any of the rules and I've been very very lucky," Sarandon told AAP from the carpet.

"I've (gone) outside of the box of the way things are supposed to unfold."

But she conceded that for a filmmaker, an event such as Tropfest was particularly helpful, especially now that her son with Tim Robbins, Jack Robbins, had shown his work at short film festivals.

"I have a son who's starting out as a filmmaker and this year and the year before he was in Sundance with a film and I know how much it meant to him," she said.

Sarandon became famous in 1975 after starring in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Since then her illustrious career has included several Oscar nominations for films such as Thelma and Louise and The Client, and an Oscar win for Dead Man Walking in 1996.

She will be using her notable experience to help choose a winning filmmaker, in a year that Tropfest is pushing for more diversity in its entrants.

She is joined on the jury by Garth Davis, director of Lion, documentary film maker Jennifer Peedom, actress Rachel Griffiths and Cleverman actor Rob Collins who will decide who out of the 16th finalists is worthy of the $10,000 cash prize and new Holden car.

"Stories are very important and certainly diverse stories in every way, whether it means diversity in terms of gender or nationality or colour or whatever, I mean the more diversity the more interesting the story," she said.

Australian Associated Press