Photos: Hagen Hopkins
Dame Miranda Harcourt is looking forward to Mother’s Day, even if two of her children won’t be around to share it.
“I know that Thomasin and Peter will have no idea that it’s Mother’s Day because they are both overseas. Our youngest, Davida, will secretly message them though, and then I’ll receive their love and blessings,” she laughs.
“I’m fine with that. As a family, we really don’t have any traditions around Mother’s Day except maybe some craft projects. Whatever the celebration, whether it’s birthday, Mother’s Day or Christmas, we always try to craft gifts as a family.”
While chatting to the Weekly, Miranda sends Davida away to find some matchboxes her youngest painted as presents one Christmas. She returns with a selection of gorgeous little painted boxes – one is a bed, complete with pillow, another is a little house with a tiny teddy inside.
“I’ve only got three left because they were so wildly popular,” says Miranda. “Everyone in the family claimed one for themselves. I’m a fan of children making things as opposed to buying things and Davida’s very good in that space.”
Even though Miranda’s kids are now fully grown, they still make their own cards for special occasions. This is an activity Miranda thanks New Zealand primary school teachers for.
“I think our primary school system has brought a lot of joy to mothers. The teachers go, ‘Okay, kids, let’s make a beautiful card with a handprint and in your terrible handwriting write ‘Mum I love you.’ And so there are tears all over New Zealand because the teachers have put the hard yards in!”
Looking back, Miranda, 62, admits it took her a long time to realise she was actually a mother.
“I remember doing an interview with somebody and the journalist was saying, ‘So what are you getting for Mother’s Day?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m getting my mother some flowers and I’ll get a cake.’ And she said, ‘No, what are you getting for Mother’s Day?’ and I just couldn’t understand it,” she laughs.
“Peter was about five months old, and it hadn’t occurred to me that the Mother’s Day mantle had been passed from Kate to me. I was now a mother!”
This Mother’s Day will be very special for Miranda and her family. They’re making the most of having Miranda’s idol, role model and mother, Dame Kate Harcourt with them. At nearly 97, Kate recently broke her hip.
“She fell over and broke her hip when she was staying with a dear friend in Nelson. She had to be airlifted to Wellington Hospital and had a hip replacement,” tells Miranda. “It was touch and go. To be honest, we didn’t expect her to survive.”
She says Kate has a “do not revive” card in her purse and would have had that implemented should anything have gone wrong, but family matriarch Kate recovered.
“We just didn’t know if she would survive the general anaesthetic at her age, but she has recovered incredibly, both physically and mentally.”
Miranda says it has taken Kate a while to get better. She was in a rest home for her recovery for three months, but has now moved back home for good.
“Thank God!” says Kate, who is clutching a cup of tea during our chat. Up until lately, Kate has still been able to accompany Miranda on outings, including the International Women’s Day celebration at Parliament a year ago.
“I didn’t take her this year because it was a breakfast. And it was at six in the morning is a bit early to be up and ready for Kate. But I took some of the yellow roses they had at the breakfast home for Mum.”
Miranda’s gift to her mum this Mother’s Day will be flowers she grew in Kate’s garden
“Kate always kept a beautiful flower garden, but now she can’t get out there, so I’ve taken up that mantle,” she tells. “I find myself out there weeding and thinking, ‘Who am I?’”
Miranda mentions that the camellias are just beginning to bloom, and she has cultivated love in the mist, buddleia, daisies, and roses in her garden.
“It’s been a great summer of flowers for Kate.”
Davida is the last of the three Harcourt-McKenzie children to take up residence downstairs in a bedroom in Kate’s part of the family home. She says they all like it because apart from the obvious attraction of being near their grandmother, it is carpeted and “it has a lot more room and more privacy”, she laughs.
Davida is following in her sister Thomasin’s footsteps, having just acted in three movies, despite telling her parents that she wouldn’t take up acting – something her older sister said too!
“Thomasin always used to say when she was little that she didn’t want to do acting and obviously she is.”
Explains Davida, “Both of us just didn’t want to follow the family route – we wanted to do our own thing. What changed for me was I got my first role, on a movie called Silent Night in 2020, and I really fell in love with acting.”
The horror/comedy starred esteemed screen actors Keira Knightley and Matthew Goode. Davida also worked with actor Roman Griffin Davis, who starred with her sister Thomasin in Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit as Jojo.
“I had spent a lot of time with Roman when they were shooting Jojo Rabbit. That made it easier for me doing my first movie,” says Davida.
She also has another movie coming out called Speedway. This one follows the unsolved “Burger Chef Murders” of 1978 that claimed the lives of four teenagers in Speedway, Indiana.
As if being 17 years old isn’t enough, she’s also completing school this year. She has also signed up with the top model agency Priscilla’s Model Management in Sydney.
Davida says sometimes she feels like an only child because her older siblings are always overseas. But she does love spending time with her eldest sister, Sara Kupa, who is her father Stuart’s oldest daughter. Sara, 39, has two children named Caspian and Clementine.
“We went to Golden Bay for a holiday and I loved being with them so much,” she says grinning. “I was about eight when Caspian was born, so I’ve grown up with them and I love them very much.”
Davida’s talented older sister Thomasin, 23, is now living in London and has just finished a movie called Joy. It’s about the first IVF birth, and Thomasin co-stars with acting greats Bill Nighy and James Norton.
When Thomasin isn’t working or auditioning, doting mum Miranda is setting up her flat with finds from op shops and Ikea.
“But at the moment, she’s in Hollywood hanging out at all the Oscar parties,” tells Miranda. “She has to look glamorous with her hair and make-up perfect, but she had an accident running, so underneath she’s a bit bruised and grazed.”
Meanwhile, brother Peter, 25, is a freelance journalist. He’s writing for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and National Geographic among others.
“He’s in Argentina at the moment working on a story,” says Miranda. “Something about the Pacific…”
Their son is now based in Auckland after living in New York as a Fulbright scholar.
With so many talented children, it must be hard for Miranda and her husband Stuart McKenzie to keep their own careers going. But the former Gloss star is a very successful acting coach with an upcoming workshop in Venice this year. He, along with Miranda, is co-directing the play “Transmission: Beta,” which Stuart has written. It looks at New Zealand during the Covid pandemic and in particular the Parliament protests.
“It’s a follow-up to our play Transmission, which we did in 2021 and focused on the Covid response.”
The play opens at Circa in Wellington on May 18. When it finishes its run, the couple will head off to Europe to stay with Thomasin in her two-bedroom flat in London and then head to Venice for their workshop.
The couple takes pride in their brood and frequently receive inquiries about how they raised such talented individuals.
“First, I take a moment to appreciate the fact that some people haven’t been lucky enough to have a consistent loving family like I had. But then I tell them that because my parents were freelancers from the late 1950s when they got married, my brother Gordon and I grew up with that flexibility, and the idea that you’re not just going to choose one thing and be that for the rest of your life. My father Peter was a journalist and Kate was an actress amongst many other things.”
Miranda says she and Stuart brought their children up the same way.
“I think they’ve thrived because they’ve grown up in a very flexible, non-gender specific kind of environment. And I think that’s been really useful to them.”
