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Miranda was born on December 16, 1967 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The daughter of Australian actor Barry Otto, Miranda is a graduate of the prestigious Australian theatrical school, NIDA. She has been nominated four times for the Australian Film Institute's Best Actress award. In 1986, Miranda made her film debut in Emma's War and gained critical recognition in The Girl Who Came Late in 1991. She has been in many critically acclaimed films, but got Hollywood's attention with small roles in the major motion pictures: The Thin Red Line and What Lies Beneath.
She spent five months in New Zealand on The Two
Towers and Return of the King shoots. She says she likes
Eowyn because she's "not some wimpy kind of Sleeping Beauty character, but
someone with a bit of guts." She loved the medieval costumes as well:
"My
On her co-star, Viggo: "He's lovely! He was Aragorn. It was difficult to tell when Viggo ended and Aragorn began. And he's an amazing sword fighter." And more on working with Viggo: "The first time I went over to have a look at what they were doing, they showed me some footage from it and part of it was Viggo from the first film talking about the Nazgul, sitting in the pub at Bree. I realized he was the character I was going to be mainly playing opposite and I thought, "That's easy! I don't even have to act that!"
"With Aragorn you sense, 'Here's this man with this incredible power and this incredible potential.' But he's actually very shy and internal the whole time. He's troubled by should he step up and be king or will he fall to the same thing that the generations of kings behind him have fallen to, and that's greed."
On the rest of her castmates: "We were completely
welcomed in right from the start. On the first day I shot I arrived
back at the hotel and there was a message on the phone saying,
"For so he is, a lord among men, the greatest that now is. But when he gave you only understanding and pity, then you desired to have nothing, unless a brave death in battle." ~Faramir.
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For her role as Eowyn, she spent six months on set learning
sword fighting and horseback riding. Miranda describes Eowyn as "slightly
cold, emotionally distant, a lady. ... But once Aragorn comes along, there's
a huge well of feeling for him. She's a very passionate person underneath."
favorite!
I've always wanted to dress like that." Even more, she liked
the sword fighting. "It was fun, extremely liberating. I'd like
to do more of it, even though I stabbed someone in the leg!"
"As Viggo he's a person of extreme integrity, and that he's
an artist, not just an actor. He's a painter, a writer, so many other
things, and he approaches acting the same way he approaches his art. He's
an artist and completely enmeshes himself in that world. He arrived
late on the film, without very much time to prepare and had to hit the ground
running, but he had so many books on everything you could imagine: myths
and legends, the Norse legends, all the Tolkien biographies. He was
such a well researched actor. I think that's what's so appealing about
Viggo. He's all these things and you go, "My God, he's such a hero.
But at the same time he's shy and understated and very kind and treats
everybody like a human being."
'Hi.'
I can't remember who it was that rang, it might have been Orlando or
Dom or Billy, said "We're all going to dinner tonight at such and such, come
along." And I was sort of welcomed straight in. I was at dinner
with them about an hour and I felt like I had known them forever. One
of my fondest memories, I was sitting down on set and I was nervous about
what I had to do, and Ian McKellan came and sat beside me and grabbed my
hand. He was just holding my hand, didn't say anything. Liv Tyler,
when I first arrived on set I thought, 'That's Liv Tyler, she's pretty famous.'
I'm the sort of person that doesn't move forward to people and be like,
'Hey, I'm your new best friend!' I'm not like that, give them their
space, they're famous, they must be sick of people who want to get close
to them all the time. But she came straight over to me, which is sort
of quite un-actress type behavior and she gave me a huge hug and said, 'I'm
so glad you're here! There's another woman here now! It's all
been men! We can do things together! We can paint nails!'"
