Beloved Kiwi actress Miranda Harcourt is known as much these days for her coaching work as she is for her time treading the boards and appearing in screen classics such as Shortland Street and Gloss.
Like her mother Kate, 95, before her, and her Leave No Trace star daughter Thomasin McKenzie, 22, Miranda, 60, needs no introduction to New Zealanders – but she says the most valuable piece of advice she ever received was, “Shut up!”
“When I was younger, I was such a talker,” laughs mum-of-three Miranda. “I was, ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ Now I try to just shut up and listen to what other people have to say.”
Miranda lists opera great Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey, iZombie star Rose McIver, The Expanse star Frankie Adams and her daughter Thomasin among the many Kiwi women she takes her hat off to.
“Dame Kiri was the rural kid from a country at the bottom of the Earth who conquered the globe,” says Miranda. “And I love that Melanie Lynskey devoted her whole speech at the Critics’ Choice Awards to thanking her nanny.”
The acting world has changed out of sight since she began at the tender age of two. “Up until the age of 14 or so, I played boys because there were no decent roles for the girls. Now there are heaps of empowering stories about girls.”
If she could visit her 16-year-old self, “I would say, ‘Work harder. Don’t be seduced by all the crazy parties, the shiny lights and the late nights. Go to bed!'”
Despite all her accolades, Miranda feels her proudest achievement is “relinquishing all the glittery things and going to work in the New Zealand prison system, telling verbatim stories from the inmates.
“That was a life-changing moment for me in terms of achieving authenticity – telling a story for a purpose as opposed to telling a story. It changed my life.”
Her hopes for Kiwi women are that “they will continue to step into positions of leadership in the way Jacinda Ardern has done, with grace and charisma.
“Women who moved here, whether it was 1000 years ago in a waka or a couple of hundred years ago in a sailing ship, that was not an easy journey. New Zealand women have always been strong.”
The Weekly has been a part of her family’s life for generations and for its 90th birthday, “I’d say the same thing I say to my mother: ‘Aren’t you lucky to be this old, surrounded by people you love and with all your marbles?!'”
