Great Australian Actresses
Weseem to offer so few roles for all the wonderful actresses we have in Australia. This list is not a fixit by any means, but a small way of keeping track of who's working and potentially finding new roles and new energy for actresses in their prime. Our industrry may not mean to be disrespectful, but the mean also doesn't justify the lack. I hope you'll add names as you see superb actresses I've missed here.
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Wendy Hughes was an accomplished actress who had won over 13 major awards. She had been called "one of the world's great actresses" with "the beauty and talent to become an international star". Hughes was born in Melbourne and studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She has two children, Charlotte (17) and Jay (13).- Peta Toppano was born on 8 April 1951 in London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Street Hero (1984), Home and Away (1988) and Heartbreak High (1994).
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Claudia Karvan is one of Australia's most recognized actresses, having achieved popular success and critical acclaim through her work in film and television.
Having begun work at 14, Karvan has an extensive filmography. She first appeared in Gillian Armstrong's High Tide (1987) with Judy Davis, then in Phillip Noyce's Echoes of Paradise (1987). Since this time Karvan has captivated audiences with her remarkable talent and beauty.
Although celebrated for her dramatic prowess, Karvan first exhibited her gift for comedy in The Big Steal (1990). Then - amongst other projects - she appeared in the romantic-drama The Heartbreak Kid (1993), for which she won an Australian Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress. In 1996 Karvan starred in the film that she is probably best known for, Dating the Enemy (1996), opposite Guy Pearce. Karvan delighted audiences in this romantic-comedy with her charming portrayal of a man trapped in a woman's body. She later went on to star in another romantic comedy, with another Australian favorite
Karvan's other features include Broken Highway (1993) (official selection for the 1994 Cannes International Film Festival), Exile (1994), Lust and Revenge (1996), Strange Planet (1999) with Naomi Watts and Hugo Weaving, and _Risk_ with Bryan Brown. But it was her part as Dr Alex Christensen on the popular Australian television series The Secret Life of Us (2001) that was the most significant turning point in her career. Karvan has credited this role, as well as her occasional turn in the director's chair, with allowing her to gain more control of her work - something for which she has always strived.
In 2004, Claudia began work on the highly popular Foxtel/Southern Star series, Love My Way (2004), as creator, producer and star and in 2007, she has just completed filming the show's third series. Love My Way (2004) has won the Silver Logie Award for Most Outstanding Drama Series and the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Television Drama Series for the past two years. Claudia has won the 2005 AFI Award for Best Lead Actress in Television and the Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series two years running for her role in the show.
Between 1987 and 2004 Karvan was nominated for twelve more Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, winning her category - Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Television Drama - in 1996 for her role in G.P. (1989). In 1998 she received The Palm Springs Short Film Festival Audience Favourite Award for Two Girls and a Baby (1998).- Actress
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Mercia Deane-Johns was born in Melbourne Australia, the seventh child, of highly creative parents. She began acting when she was 12. Her mother was a concert pianist and her father, a New Zealander, a beautiful singer, the whole family learned musical instruments. She studied classical singing at the London College of Music and has sung in many jazz bands. She toured the world with The Celibate Rifles in 1989. She is also a writer and was a columnist for Australian Playboy in the '80s. She has played a variety of characters in television, film, and theatre for the past forty years, and is best known for her versatility and humour on Australian screens. She has played Russian Immigrants, Bikie chicks, Jewish girls, Italian mammas, the wild and whacky Sharon on Chances, activists, barmaids, Irish school girls, and many more. She has worked with Judy Davis, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, Nicole Kidman, Michael Caton, Deborah Kennedy, Julia Blake. She is a passionate voice for the Indigenous Nations of Australia, the environment, and civil rights. She has one daughter, Natasha.- Greta Scacchi was born in Milan, Italy, to Pamela Carsaniga, an English dancer and Luca Scacchi, an Italian art dealer and painter. She grew up in Milan and Sussex, England. In 1975, her mother and second husband moved to Australia, where, after she left school, Greta worked as an Italian interpreter on a ranch. At age 18, she returned to England and trained at the Bristol Old Vic, paying her way through college by working as a model for catalogues. Played small parts as a stage actress before she made her first appearance on British television, then the young film maker Dominik Graf directed her in Das zweite Gesicht (1982). She learned German for this movie. (She also speaks fluent Italian and French.) After Heat and Dust (1983), she played parts in French, Italian and English movies and Australian television, working with the Taviani Brothers, Margareta von Trotta and Diana Kurys. She turned down Hollywood for many years but after appearing in White Mischief (1987) agreed to co-star in Presumed Innocent (1990), Shattered (1991) and The Player (1992).
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Miranda Otto is an Australian actress. Otto is a daughter of actors Barry Otto and Lindsay Otto, and half-sister of actress Gracie Otto. She began her acting career at age 18 in 1986, and has appeared in a variety of independent and major studio films. Otto made her major film debut in Emma's War (1987), in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia's bush country during World War II. After a decade of critically acclaimed roles in Australian films, Otto gained Hollywood's attention during the 1990s after appearing in supporting roles in the films The Thin Red Line (1998) and What Lies Beneath (2000). She played Éowyn in the second and third installments of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film series.
Otto's first post-graduation film role in 1991, as Nell Tiscowitz in The Girl Who Came Late (1992), was her breakthrough role, which brought her to the attention of the Australian film industry and the general public. In the film, directed by Kathy Mueller, she starred as a young woman who could communicate with horses. Her appearance garnered Otto her first Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actress the following year.
Otto's next role was in the film The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992), which portrayed the complex relationships between the members of an Australian family. The film earned Otto her second Australian Film Institute nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1993, Otto co-starred with Noah Taylor in the sexually provocative comedy film The Nostradamus Kid (1993), which was based on the memories of author Bob Ellis during the 1960s. Otto was drawn to the film because she was "fascinated by the period and the people who came out of it." A small role in the independent film Sex Is a Four Letter Word (1995) followed in 1995.
In 1995, she began to doubt her career choice as she failed to get the parts for which she auditioned. She fled to her home in Newcastle for almost a year, during which she painted her mother's house. In 1996, director Shirley Barrett cast Otto as a shy waitress in the film Love Serenade (1996). She played Dimity Hurley, a lonely young woman, who competes with her older sister Vicki-Ann for the attention of a famous DJ from Brisbane. She starred in the 1997 films The Well (1997) and Doing Time for Patsy Cline (1997). When Otto received the film script for The Well, she refused to read it, fearing that she would not get the part. Otto believed that she could not convincingly play the role of Katherine, who is supposed to be 18, as she was 30 at the time. The film, directed by Samantha Lang, starred Otto as a teenager involved in a claustrophobic relationship with a lonely older woman. The Well received mixed reviews; critic Paul Fisher wrote that Otto's performance was not "convincing" as she was "playing another repetitious character about whom little is revealed", while Louise Keller stated that Otto had delivered "her best screen performance yet." Otto earned her third Australian Film Institute nomination for the film. Later that year, she co-starred with Richard Roxburgh in the drama Doing Time for Patsy Cline. The low-budget Australian film required Otto to perform country music standards and also received mixed reviews from film critics.
Soon after the release of The Well and Doing Time for Patsy Cline, magazines and other media outlets were eager to profile the actress. In 1997, Otto began dating her Doing Time for Patsy Cline co-star Richard Roxburgh. Her involvement with Roxburgh made her a regular subject of Australian tabloid magazines and media at the time, a role to which she was unaccustomed.
Otto's next project was the romantic comedy Dead Letter Office (1998). The film was Otto's first with her father, Barry, who makes a brief appearance. In the Winter Dark (1998), directed by James Bogle, followed later that year. Otto played Ronnie, a pregnant woman recently abandoned by her boyfriend. The film was a critical success in Australia, and Otto was nominated for her fourth Australian Film Institute Award. A small role in The Thin Red Line, led to further film roles outside of Australia, such as in Italy, where she co-starred as Ruth in the low-budget Italian film The Three-Legged Fox (2004), produced in 2001 and broadcast for the first time on Italian television in March 2009.
Otto's first Hollywood role was opposite Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer in the suspense thriller What Lies Beneath in 2000. She played Mary Feur, a mysterious next-door neighbor. The film was met with mixed reviews, but was an international success, grossing US$291 million. In 2001, she was cast as a naturalist in the comedy Human Nature (2001). Writer Charlie Kaufman, impressed by her audition two years earlier for his film Being John Malkovich (1999), arranged for Otto to audition and meet with the film's director Michel Gondry. Human Nature was both a commercial and critical disappointment.
Otto made her theatrical debut in the 1986 production of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant for the Sydney Theatre Company. Three more theatrical productions for the Sydney Theatre Company followed in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2002, she returned to the stage playing Nora Helmer in A Doll's House opposite her future husband Peter O'Brien. Otto's performance earned her a 2003 Helpmann Award nomination and the MO Award for "Best Female Actor in a Play".
Her next stage role was in the psychological thriller Boy Gets Girl (2005), in which she played Theresa, a journalist for a New York magazine. Otto committed to the project days before she found out she was pregnant. Robyn Nevin, the director, rescheduled the production from December 2004 to September 2005 so Otto could appear in it. In 2005, Nevin began pre-production on a play commissioned especially for Otto.- Actress
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Frances Ann O'Connor is a British-Australian actress and director. She is known for her roles in the films Mansfield Park (1999), Bedazzled (2000), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), The Importance of Being Earnest (2002), and Timeline (2003). O'Connor has won an AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in Blessed (2009), and earned Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Miniseries or Television Film nominations for her performances in Madame Bovary (2000) and The Missing (2014).- Actress
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Noni Hazlehurst was born on 17 August 1953 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is an actress and director, known for Candy (2006), Little Fish (2005) and Ladies in Black (2018). She was previously married to John Jarratt and Kevin James Dobson.- Actress
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Helen Morse was born on 24 January 1947 in Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middlesex, England, UK. She is an actress and costume designer, known for Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Caddie (1976) and A Town Like Alice (1981).