Kiwi traces out career in Hollywood
Actress Thomasin McKenzie Harcourt is feeling lucky – and it’s not because she’s travelling New Zealand promoting her latest movie Leave No Trace, which features in this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival.
Nor is it that she’s starring in Taika Waititi’s Jo Jo Rabbit. Nor because she’s acting with some of the biggest names in show business, or that she’s being compared to Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence.
McKenzie’s feeling lucky because Hollywood is changing, and for the better for women.
‘‘I feel lucky that I’m breaking into the film industry at a time when people are becoming more aware of how long they have been mistreated and manipulated. It hasn’t been equal pay, and people aren’t receiving the same amount of respect as each other or that they deserve,’’ she said.
‘‘I’m kind of lucky that all of that is changing now. It’s really amazing that the young actresses who came before me had to experience all of that really horrible abuse and that fear. It’s great these stories are coming out so their voices are being heard and they are finally being respected and acknowledged.
‘‘It’s a really interesting time, it’s a scary time, but it’s also a hopeful time.’’
The Wellington actress, daughter of directors Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie, and granddaughter of actress Dame Kate Harcourt, celebrated her 18th birthday on the plane returning from Prague, where she spent two months working on Jojo Rabbit, in which she plays a young Jewish girl hiding