Miranda Harcourt


Miranda Catherine Millais Harcourt is a New Zealand actress and acting coach. She is the daughter of actress Dame Kate Harcourt.
Harcourt's acting career began playing boy characters on Radio New Zealand in the early 1970s. She is best known for her role as "Gemma" in the 1980s TV drama series Gloss. Harcourt spent three years acting on the show, and her character was so despicable that people spat at and insulted Harcourt in public. Harcourt received a nomination in the 1989 Film and TV Awards for best actress for the role.
Harcourt has starred in countless productions across New Zealand and Australia. The exhaustive and comprehensive list can be found at Theatre Aotearoa Database.

Personal life

Harcourt is the daughter of Dame Kate Harcourt and Peter Harcourt. Her younger brother Gordon Harcourt was a presenter on Fair Go.
Harcourt is married to Stuart McKenzie. Together they have three children: Peter, Thomasin McKenzie, and Davida.

Education

Harcourt graduated Toi Whakaari, New Zealand Drama School, in 1984. In 1990, a sponsored year at London's Central School of Speech and Drama led to an exploration of drama therapy in psychiatric institutions, with the deaf, and in prisons – the latter inspiring her collaboration with writer William Brandt for the solo play Verbatim, where Harcourt acted, solo, portraying nine characters, inmates' relatives, and victims' families.

Verbatim theatre

Harcourt was also a pioneer of verbatim theatre in New Zealand, in creating Verbatim, in collaboration with William Brandt and Portraits in collaboration with Stuart McKenzie. Performed in front of people convicted of violent crimes, Harcourt says Verbatim "was a reflection back at the people on the inside; what their mothers, their sisters and their children had said about them". The show was well received in New Zealand theatres and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and from the inmates themselves. Harcourtt recollected one inmate, a year after the show, asking her where the other actresses were who had starred, having remembered the distinct characters that Harcourt portrayed solo so distinctly that he remembered them as separate, individual women. The Sunday Star-Times described Verbatim as "a small miracle of dramatic theatre". The NZ Times said Harcourt's performance was "frightening in its stamina and emotional range". In The Guardian, renowned reviewer Michael Billington praised Verbatim as "a remarkable solo show about violence.”
Harcourt and her mother, Kate, acted together in Flowers From My Mother's Garden, a collection of shared anecdotes, reminiscences and stories centred on their relationship and family, and co-written by Harcourt and her husband, Stuart McKenzie. The play was commissioned by the 1998 International Festival of the Arts and has since been staged in Auckland, Dunedin and Christchurch.

Directing

Harcourt's first short film as a director, Voiceover, written and produced by husband Stuart McKenzie, won Best Short Film at the 1997 NZ Film and Television Awards, and her first play as a director won a slew of awards at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards including Best Actor and Best Set Design.

Sound

Harcourt served as an ADR voice coach for the film Boy in 2010.

Honours and awards

In 1993, Harcourt received the New Zealand Suffrage Centennial Medal, and in the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to theatre and the community.
Harcourt has twice been awarded Best Actress at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. She has won New Zealand Film and TV Awards for Best Short Film and was a finalist as Best Actress and as Best Supporting Actress. Harcourt has received the Media Peace Prize. She was also nominated for Best Performance by a Supporting Actress, a General TV Award, for Tangiwai in 2011.

Teaching and coaching

Harcourt is currently an acting technique tutor for The Actors Program, Auckland, New Zealand. She was the Head of Acting at Toi Whakaari, New Zealand Drama School, for seven years, and is widely acknowledged for her contributions to the school.
As well as coaching NZ actors and casts, Harcourt has expanded her professional scope to include overseas actors in Australia and America, including Anna Sophia Robb and Carrie Underwood. She both travels to coach, and coaches via Skype, international actors requiring her expertise. As part of her role on the board of Film New Zealand, she also helps to market Kiwi actors to overseas film-makers.
Harcourt was the acting coach on a number of international and local feature films, including Bridge to Terabithia directed by Gabor Csupo, Jane Campion's Bright Star, Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones and Heavenly Creatures, Jonathan King's Under the Mountain, Gaylene Preston's Home By Christmas, Yvonne MacKay's TV series Kaitangata Twitch, and Taika Waititi's Boy. Harcourt also teaches Professional Level – Teen Acting for Stage and Screen, as the head tutor at Scots College Creative and Performing Arts School.

Production

Harcourt is a partner in the company MAP Film Productions, alongside McKenzie and producer/director Neil Pardington. She has appeared in short films directed by each, including Pardington's The Dig and McKenzie's darkly comic Ends Meat'. She also executive produced the short A&E in 2006, and co-produced For Good in 2003.

Access and representation

In addition to her past work in prisons and institutions, Harcourt also volunteers with disabled and deaf communities.

Filmography

The Rehearsal, Livia, 2016.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Olga, 2014.
Passion in Paradise, Elaine Williams, 2011.
Rage, Fran Oram, 2011.
Tangiwai, Mabel Love, 2011.
Paradise Cafe, Victoria, 2009 – 2011. Appears in 24 episodes.
Dangerous Ride 2010.
Until Proven Innocent, Dr Patricia Sullivan, 2009.
Fracture, Irene Rosser, 2004.
The Strip, Natalie, 2003.
Something Fishy, Natalie, 2003.
For Good, Mother, 2003.
City Life, Rebekah Tennant, 1996..
Hairy MacLary, Narrator, 1995.
Riding High, Annabel, 1995. Appears in 7 episodes.
The Dig, Daughter, 1994.
Typhon's People, Hilary Gladstone, 1993.
Shortland Street, Madeline Trent, 1992.
The Shadow Trader, Joanna McCarthy, 1989.
Send a Gorilla, Kerry-Anne, 1988.
Gloss, Gemma, 1987.
Bad Blood, Ivy Smith, 1981.
Harcourt also starred in the 1996 Documentary In the Shadow of King Lear and appeared in Archived Footage as herself in two instances; Happy Birthday 2 You, 2000, and Look Who's Famous Now, 1999.