   #copyright

Miranda Otto

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Actors, models and
celebrities

   Miranda Otto
   Miranda Otto in 1998's Dead Letter Office.
   Born          December 16, 1967
                 Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
   Notable roles Éowyn in The Lord of the Rings
   Spouse(s)     Peter O'Brien

   Miranda Otto (born on December 16, 1967) is an Australian film and
   theatre actress. She began her career in the film Emma's War (1986) and
   gained critical recognition in the drama The Girl Who Came Late (1991).
   After a decade of critically acclaimed roles in Australian films, Otto
   gained Hollywood's attention after appearing in supporting roles in The
   Thin Red Line (1998) and What Lies Beneath (2000), before her
   breakthrough in 2002, when her character Éowyn was introduced to
   audiences in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

   An accomplished dramatic actress, she received Australia's highest film
   awards for her performances in The Girl Who Came Late, The Last Days of
   Chez Nous (1992), The Well (1997), and In the Winter Dark (1998). Otto
   performs predominantly in supporting roles in a variety of low-budget
   and major studio films, ranging from romantic comedies and drama to
   science fiction and action thrillers. Her most popular films include
   The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2002, 2003), and Steven Spielberg's
   War of the Worlds (2005).

Early life and education

   Otto was born in Brisbane, Queensland, the daughter of Australian stage
   and film actor Barry Otto and former actress Lindsay Otto, who retired
   from acting upon Otto's birth. The ancestors of her family were German
   immigrants. Miranda was named after a character from William
   Shakespeare's The Tempest.

   Otto was raised in Newcastle and Brisbane, and briefly resided in Hong
   Kong following her parents' separation in 1973. She eventually settled
   in Newcastle, a town north of Sydney. She spent weekends and holidays
   with her father in Sydney when she was not with her mother and
   developed an interest in acting.

   During her teenage years, Otto excelled in academics and in ballet,
   which she once considered as a career option. However, she had to
   abandon this goal due to moderate scoliosis.

   In her childhood, Otto and her friends wrote scripts and songs and
   designed costumes and flyers in their spare time. Taking these
   activities seriously, Otto eventually appeared in a play at the Nimrod
   Theatre. Her performance attracted the attention of director Faith
   Martin who was impressed with the presentation. Subsequently, Otto
   received a casting-role in Emma's War (1986).

   Following brief thoughts of majoring in medicine, Otto enrolled at the
   National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, where she spent three
   years in the study of professional acting. While in attendance, she was
   known as "the Flagellator" for her frequent tendency to be bothered
   about a character-role until she had perfected it to her satisfaction.
   Before graduation in 1990, Otto appeared in minor film roles including
   The 13th Floor (1988) and Heroes II: The Return (1990).

Film career

1986—1993: Early works

   Although she made her film debut in 1986 as Emma Grange in the
   Australian film Emma's War, Otto began to focus seriously on acting
   after graduation. Her first roles were in the low-budget Australian
   films The Girl Who Came Late (also known as Daydream Believer) (1991)
   and Last Days of Chez Nous (1992). Both films garnered Otto critical
   recognition and Australian Film Institute nominations.

   Her next film was the sexually provocative The Nostradamus Kid (1993)
   co-starring Noah Taylor, which was based on the memoires of Australian
   author Bob Ellis. The film was difficult for Otto as it required
   multiple sex scenes, which made her uncomfortable. On these scenes Otto
   commented: "The first time you do it, though, it's very technical - do
   you want my arm there, that's not working, do you want me to scream
   louder, that sort of stuff. It's hard, cos it's not something you've
   seen other women do, so you're scared that you'll do something that
   gives you away as really strange."

   Soon after Last Days of Chez Nous was released, Australian magazines
   were eager to profile the actress. By now, Otto was also receiving
   praise from her co-stars and directors, and had soon earned a
   reputation for being very professional while sometimes taking dark,
   challenging roles.

1994—1998: Lead appearances

   After a small role in the low-budget Sex is a Four-Letter Word in 1995,
   Otto began to doubt her career choice as she failed to get the parts
   she auditioned for and underwent a loss in self confidence. The feeling
   lifted partially when she was offered a part she loved in Love Serenade
   (1996), but, even then, she was not wholly convinced that acting was
   what she wanted to do with her life.

   In 1997, she starred in two of her most complex and demanding films of
   her career, The Well and Doing Time for Patsy Cline. The Well revolves
   around Hester (Pamela Rabe), a lonely young woman, and her
   claustrophobic relationship with Otto's Katherine, onto whom Hester
   projects her dreams of freedom. When Otto first received the film
   script, she did not want to read it in fear that she would not get the
   part. She believed that she could not convincingly fill the role of
   Katherine, who is supposed to be eighteen, as she was thirty years old
   at the time. At the audition Otto was able to work around her
   insecurities, and was given the part. The film premiered at the Cannes
   Film Festival in 1997 as Australia's only entry that year, and it
   received mostly positive reviews. Otto also received an Australian Film
   Institute nomination for her role.

   In Doing Time for Patsy Cline Otto played the lead character named
   Patsy as an object of male fantasy. Of her character, Otto commented:
   "I went through a huge thing about Patsy [Cline]," she says. "A lot of
   women, when they play that part these days — characters who are partly
   sex-object—they're always doing a really tough-talking
   short-skirt-wearing, punchy, sexy kind of American thing. She was
   really gentle and passive and retiring and sexual in that way. It was a
   part of myself I hadn't really used because I'd been a more aggressive
   character in life, more cerebral, nutting things out, and argumentative
   — that's who I am as a person, and then this other thing came out which
   was soft, protected."

   In 1998 she appeared in Dead Letter Office and In the Winter Dark. Both
   films were critical hits, but were not seen by large audiences. By now,
   however, she landed a minor role in The Thin Red Line co-starring with
   George Clooney and Sean Penn. Although the role was very small, it gave
   Otto great exposure and lead to further roles in films outside
   Australia.

1999–present: Hollywood

   After A Thin Red Line, Otto appeared in the supernatural thriller What
   Lies Beneath (2000) co-starring Harrison Ford. Her next film was Human
   Nature (2001), which follows the ups and downs of an obsessive
   scientist, a female naturalist, and the man they discover, born and
   raised in the wild. Originally Otto had auditioned for a role in Being
   John Malkovich, but lost out on the lead female role after Cameron Diaz
   decided to take it instead. The film's director, however, remembered
   Otto and cast her in Human Nature, a film she really wanted to be a
   part of.

   Her breakthrough in Hollywood came in 2002 when her character Éowyn was
   introduced to audiences in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Otto
   beat out many actresses for the role as the character in J. R. R.
   Tolkien's fantasy trilogy. Peter Jackson, the trilogy's director, was
   convinced that she was the best for the role after watching her
   audition tape only once. For the role she took on a grueling nine month
   schedule between March and December 2000 to film the part, for which
   she was given training in horseriding and sword-fighting. The Lord of
   the Rings: The Two Towers would also become one of the most successful
   films of all time when it grossed over $900 million on a budget of $94
   million USD. The following year Otto would reprise her role in the
   third and final film in the trilogy The Lord of the Rings: The Return
   of the King, which also was a box office success and earned Otto a
   nomination for "Best Supporting Actress" at the Academy of Science
   Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Awards.

   Films of varying quality and success followed The Lord of the Rings.
   She starred opposite of Rhys Ifans in the low-budget, moderately
   successful 2003 comedy Danny Deckchair as a parking inspector. In 2004
   she starred opposite Matthew Macfadyen in the drama In My Father's Den,
   another low-budget film which was not seen by a large audience. Later
   that year Otto starred in two-part miniseries, Through My Eyes, which
   told the story Lindy Chamberlain who was convicted of killing her baby
   daughter, Azaria in one of Australia's most publicized murder trials.
   Otto was interested in the role because it was challenging to play
   someone so different from herself, and because of the prospect of
   exploring an unconventional character. The miniseries was a hit with
   audiences and scored highly with critics, and earned Otto a Logie Award
   for "Most Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series".

   After seeing her performance as Éowyn in The Lord Of The Rings, Otto
   received a phone call from director Steven Spielberg inquiring if she
   would play opposite Tom Cruise in the big-budget science fiction film
   War of the Worlds (2005)). At the time, Otto was pregnant and believed
   she would have to turn down the role, but Spielberg reworked the script
   to accommodate her pregnancy. The movie would become a box office and
   critical success when it grossed over $591.4 million, making it the
   fourth highest grossing film of 2005.

   After the birth of her first child in 2005, Otto took a hiatus from
   major film roles to concentrate on motherhood and theatre work in
   Australia.

Theatre

   She made her theatre debut at the age of seventeen in the 1986
   production The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kan for the Sydney Theatre
   Company. Her performance was well received by critics and led to
   further parts in stage plays with the Sydney Theatre Company. Otto's
   most popular performance was as Nora Helmer in the 2002 production of A
   Doll's House. It earned her a 2003 Helpmann Award nomination and the
   prestigious MO Award for "Female Actor in a Play".

   Her most recent stage production was 2005's Boy Gets Girl, in which she
   played Theresa, a journalist for a big-time New York magazine. Otto
   committed to the project a few days before she found out she was
   pregnant, but production was postponed until Otto gave birth. The play
   also marks the second time she has worked with her father, the first
   being briefly in the film Dead Letter Office (1998).

Personal life

   In 1997 Otto began dating her Doing Time for Patsy Cline co-star
   Richard Roxburgh, but the relationship ended in 2000, reportedly
   because of the little time they spent together due to their busy acting
   schedules.

   On January 1, 2003, she married actor Peter O'Brien. The two had met
   while performing in A Doll's House in 2002. They have one child, a
   daughter Darcey (b. 2005). O'Brien was unable to attend the birth as he
   was filming in Texas. Many media reports stated that he watched the
   birth via webcam, but Otto denies these reports as being untrue. She
   and O'Brien are determined to raise their daughter on their own and
   rotate their working life, with one parent always around to care for
   Darcey.

Filmography

   Year Film Role Other notes
   1986 Emma's War Emma Grange
   1987 Initiation Stevie
   1988 The 13th Floor Rebecca
   1990 Heroes II: The Return (TV) Roma Page
   1991 The Girl Who Came Late Nell Tiscowitz Australian Film Institute
   nomination
   1992 The Last Days of Chez Nous Annie Australian Film Institute
   nomination
   1993 The Nostradamus Kid Jennie O'Brien
   1995 Sex Is a Four Letter Word Viv
   1996 Love Serenade Dimity Hurley
   1997 The Well Katherine Australian Film Institute nomination
   1997 True Love and Chaos Mimi
   1997 Doing Time for Patsy Cline Patsy
   1998 Dead Letter Office Alice Walsh Film Critics Circle of Australia
   Awards nomination
   1998 In the Winter Dark Ronnie Australian Film Institute nomination
   1998 The Thin Red Line Marty Bell
   1999 The Jack Bull (TV) Cora Redding
   2000 Kin Anna
   2000 What Lies Beneath Mary Feur
   2001 Human Nature Gabrielle
   2001 The Way We Live Now (Mini-series) Mrs. Murtle
   2001 Volpe a tre zampe Ruth
   2002 Doctor Sleep Clara Strother
   2002 Julie Walking Home Julie
   2002 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Éowyn
   2003 Danny Deckchair Glenda Lake
   2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Éowyn Academy of
   Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films nomination
   2004 In My Father's Den Penny
   2004 Through My Eyes: The Lindy Chamberlain Story (Mini-series) Lindy
   Chamberlain Logie Award
   2005 Flight of the Phoenix Kelly
   2005 War of the Worlds Mary Ann Ferrier
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_Otto"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
