Miranda Harcourt

Miranda Harcourt, ONZM, has certainly practiced what she preaches. Harcourt spent seven years as head of acting at drama school Toi Whakaari. Aside from a long career acting and directing for the stage, her CV includes acting roles in a run of films, television series and shorts, alongside directing and producing for the screen.

The daughter of actors Kate and Peter Harcourt, Miranda made one of her earliest screen appearances with a small role in the 1981 feature Bad Blood, shortly before she began studying at the New Zealand drama school.

But it was her role as Gemma, the sophisticated city slicker in Gloss, that would rocket her to fame. Harcourt spent three years on the show charting the character's journey from innocent to arch-manipulator, winning a 1989 nomination for best supporting actress in the process.

The same year she teamed up with Annie Whittle to star in urban morality piece The Shadow Trader on television. Whittle and Miranda Harcourt played chalk and cheese café-owners, facing off against a scheming property developer who fantasises about wrecking balls.

Harcourt leveraged her television profile to initiate sellout seasons of Oracles and Miracles (playing an eleven-year-old Christchurch girl) and one woman show Kaz - A Working Girl. The NZ Times described her performance in the latter as "almost frightening in its stamina and emotional range".

In 1990 Miranda spent a year at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, studying the use of drama and movement in therapy. During this time she worked in psychiatric institutions, and with the deaf and disabled. She also found herself growing increasingly interested in drama therapy in prisons.

After returning Harcourt worked on the solo stage-play Verbatim, devised with writer William Brandt. The play is based on interviews with prisoners involved with violent crime. Harcourt performed the show in prisons across New Zealand and in theatres here and overseas, including at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Excerpts from her performance can be seen here, in the prizewinning Shirley Horrocks documentary Act of Murder. Verbatim and later show Portraits would feed into the 2003 feature film For Good, which Harcourt helped develop and produce, working with her director husband Stuart McKenzie.

The last half of the 90s would prove especially busy in terms of screen work. Harcourt played husband to the late Kevin Smith in Auckland ensemble drama City Life, based around a group of apartment-dwelling 20-somethings.  She was nominated for a best supporting actor award for a guest role on detective series Duggan, appeared in the sixth episode of the acclaimed Cover Story, narrated animated episodes of Hairy McLary, and appeared briefly in the movie version of Topless Women Talk About Their Lives.

In 1997 Harcourt made her directorial debut with the short Voiceover, an experimental documentary inspired by her radio announcer father. Pavement described the film as "fascinating, provocative, yet surprisingly personal". Voiceover won the award for best short film at the 1998 NZ Film and TV Awards.

That year Harcourt began a seven-year stint teaching acting at Toi Whakaari, some of which can be glimpsed in behind-the-scenes series Tough Act, again directed by her husband Stuart McKenzie. During this period Harcourt made another short, co-directing with fellow drama school teacher Rawiri Paratene: 40s-era short Needles and Glass was invited to the Montreal Film Festival.

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 (which was invited to Cannes) and McKenzie's darkly comic Ends Meat.

The trio would later work together on MAP's feature debut For Good, the story of a young woman who grows fascinated with a convicted murderer (Tim Balme). Harcourt also acts in the film, playing the mother of a murder victim. Christchurch Press reviewer Margaret Agnew praised Balme and Harcourt's "superlative" performances, adding that "Harcourt's raw pain and anger is awe-inspiring."

Harcourt is also seen in docu-drama Clare, playing cervical cancer whistleblower Philidda Bunkle - and amongst the cast of Maurice Gee ensemble drama Fracture. Her latest screen role is on kidult TV series Paradise Cafe, filmed in Raratonga in 2008.

Harcourt also has another string to her bow - she has worked as acting coach on a number of features. In early 1993 she was given just a short period to put teenage discovery Melanie Lysnkey at her ease, and help determine whether Lynksey had the acting talent to pull off a demanding role in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures. Harcourt has gone on to coach cast in Under the Mountain, Gaylene Preston's Home By Christmas, Jane Campion's Bright Star, and the NZ-shot fantasy Bridge to Terabithia.

In 2002 Harcourt was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for her services to the theatre and the community.