Miranda Harcourt continues to champion New Zealand talent on the world stage. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King;
Producer, director and acting coach Miranda Harcourt has been made a dame for services to the screen industry and theatre.
Dame Miranda started out working as a drama therapist in New Zealand's prisons and has gone on to make award-winning contributions as an actor, acting coach and writer.
Her early work in the prison system during the 90s alongside husband Stuart McKenzie, performing a solo show called Verbatim, aimed to show that the purpose of performance was to create change.
Through that work, she decided to devote herself to being a dramatist and an activator as opposed to an actor.
She told RNZ creating stories was at the core of human existence and they had the capacity to create change in our lives.
"I'm passionate about stories because stories reach out and help people to make decisions about their own lives.
"It's fiction and stories that are a unique human capacity. It's only humans who can understand fiction. It's only humans who can understand the metaphors of music or understand the way a movie can help you make a decision to change your own future."
Dame Miranda works with leading actors and directors around the world and many of her clients have won BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Emmys and Academy Awards.
"We all understand the power of great teaching and how that can lift somebody out of themselves to achieve their ambition and to be the best person they can be.
"That's what I aim to do is use the tools of great teaching to help actors achieve an inspirational performance because then, of course, it reaches out and inspires people all over the world when they see it and creates change in itself."
Miranda Harcourt, right, with another New Zealand film-maker Gaylene Preston. Photo: ( RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King)
She has collaborated on numerous projects with her husband, including adapting their play Portraits into the feature film For Good that premiered in 2003.
She also created a 10-part documentary series Tough Act. She wrote and co-directed the 2017 feature film The Changeover, based on Margaret Mahy's coming-of-age novel. Most recently, their play Transmission dramatised aspects of New Zealand's response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
She was head of acting at Toi Whakaari New Zealand Drama School from 1998 to 2005.
She is founding tutor at Rātā Studios in Wellington and continues to champion New Zealand talent on the world stage. She has also been an advocate for social change organisations including Women's Refuge and So They Can.
Dame Miranda is the daughter of Dame Kate Harcourt who had a lengthy career as an actor in comedy and drama in theatre, film, TV and radio. She is also the mother of Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie who has gained recognition after prominent roles in Leave no Trace, Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho and Life after Life.
Dame Miranda won a Kea Supreme Award earlier this year, an achievement in film award at the Women in Film and Television Awards in 2018 and was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, in 2002.
