DAME MIRANDA HARCOURT

Acting Coach, Director & Theatre Maker

For seven years Miranda was the Head of the Acting Department at Toi Whakaari — New Zealand Drama School. Her tenure there is celebrated for establishing a close connection between the training institution and the wider industry. Her students and graduates are remarkably well-represented amongst New Zealand’s premier
actors and directors. Her work at the school was recorded in the acclaimed TVNZ documentary series TOUGH ACT.

Now she works as an independent coach.

BACKGROUND

Directors she has worked with include Jane Campion, Peter Jackson, Morten Tyldum, Taika Waititi, Garth Davis, Mark Molloy, Tom George, Mirrah Foulkes, Rodd Rathjen, Gaysorn Thavat, James Kent, as well as all directors on acclaimed feature film VAI .

Actors include Nicole Kidman, Juliette Binoche, Dev Patel, Brooklyn Prince, Sunny Pawar, Timothy Spall, Melanie Lynskey, Lucy Lawless, Erik Thomson, Rebeca Gibney, Ritu Arya, Abischek Bharate, Josh Hutcherson, Saoirse Ronan, Isabelle Fuhrman, AnnaSophia Robb, Thomasin McKenzie, George McKay, Rhys Darby, Daisy Cooper, Amanda Crew, Carrie Underwood, Fionn Whitehead, and Kaori Momoi.

Miranda's daughter is Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit, Leave No Trace), Winner of NBR Breakthrough Performance 2018

Miranda is Nicole Kidman’s regular coach and works as a creative consultant for Blossom Films.

Miranda works in creative partnership with her husband filmmaker Stuart McKenzie.

At the forefront of verbatim theatre internationally, their plays include VERBATIM, PORTRAITS, FLOWERS FROM MY MOTHER’S GARDEN and BIOGRAPHY OF MY SKIN.

Their acclaimed dark drama FOR GOOD, adapted from their verbatim work in prisons all over NZ, won Best Actress at the Festival Des Antipodes.

Stuart and Miranda co-directed THE CHANGEOVER (2019) starring Timothy Spall, praised as “a perfect genre film” (Roger Ebert); “re- invigorating the YA genre” (Forbes); “bringing YA fantasy magically to life” (LA Times); and “goes down as
easily as a love potion in a coven” (New York Times)