Miranda Harcourt is New Zealand acting royalty - in the middle of a dynasty; her mother is Dame Kate Harcourt, her daughter is Thomasin McKenzie.
Miranda Harcourt Photo: Supplied
When she was still an actor, as a one-off side job, Harcourt coached Melanie Lynskey ahead of her audition for Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures.
Years later it became a full-time job, coaching on the set of Bridge to Terabithia.
But it’s not just new-to-screen actors that she’s coaching, although she couldn’t possibly comment on the coaching she did for Big Little Lies, she says.
“Of course, I have many very famous clients but I’ll leave it to your imagination.”
Even actors who’ve been acting for years need coaching, she says.
“You wouldn’t send the All Blacks out to play a game coachless,” she says.
"Because they’re at the top of their game, they know exactly what they’re doing but they need somebody to orchestrate, they need somebody to provide fresh ideas, fresh perspectives. They’re in it, and so they need an outside eye.”
These days a director has a lot of demands on their time, and acting takes time, she says.
“You need a volleyball, someone to bounce ideas back and forth.”
In the 60s and 70s, her parents broke the news to her that she wasn’t going to be doing one thing all of her life, and she’s glad they did.
“I love good acting, I’m committed to doing good acting, I don’t care whether I’m doing it or other people are doing it, I just want good acting to happen.”
It’s a job that requires honesty, she says.
“You’ve got to have a great diagnostic ability and then you’ve got to have some great answers to the problems that you identify. You have to work fast.”
As an actor, you have to be sensitive but tough, she says. They’re attributes she says her daughter Thomasin McKenzie has.
McKenzie’s acting career came as a surprise to her mum - she’d always said she wasn’t going to be an actor. But when Harcourt was on the set of Consent: The Louise Nicolas Story and a 13-year-old was needed to play a young Louise, MxKenzie wanted to audition, saying it was a really important story to tell.
McKenzie's since stared in the 2018 film Leave No Trace and plays Elsa in Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit.
“She’s playing up there among the stars.”
