Miranda Otto (born December 16, 1967) is an Australian actress. The daughter of actors Lindsay and Barry Otto and the sister of actress Gracie Otto, she began acting at age eighteen, and has performed in a variety of independent and major studio films.<\/p>\n
Her first major film appearance was in the 1986 film Emma’s War, in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia’s bush country during World War II. In 1996, director\u00a0Shirley Barrett\u00a0cast Otto as a shy waitress in the film\u00a0Love Serenade. She starred in the 1997 films\u00a0Doing Time for Patsy Cline and The Well, for which earned her third Australian Film Institute nomination. Her next project was the romantic comedy\u00a0Dead Letter Office\u00a0(1998). The film was Otto’s first with her father,\u00a0Barry, who makes a brief appearance. Later that year, she starred in the film In the Winter Dark, directed by James Bogle, for which she was nominated for her fourth Australian Film Institute Award.<\/p>\n
After a decade of critically acclaimed roles in Australian films, she gained Hollywood’s attention after appearing in supporting roles in The Thin Red Line (1998) and What Lies Beneath (2000). In 2001, she was cast as a\u00a0naturalist\u00a0in the comedy\u00a0Human Nature and appeared in the\u00a0BBC\u00a0adaptation of\u00a0Anthony Trollope’s\u00a0The Way We Live Now, as a strong-willed American Southerner. Her breakthrough role came in 2002, when she portrayed \u00c9owyn in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Her character was introduced in the trilogy’s second film\u00a0The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers\u00a0in 2002 and appeared in the third film,\u00a0The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the following year. Her performance earned her an Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films nomination for Best Supporting Actress.<\/p>\n
Director\u00a0Steven Spielberg, impressed by Otto’s performance in\u00a0The Lord of the Rings, called her to ask if she would play opposite\u00a0Tom Cruise\u00a0in the big-budget science fiction film\u00a0War of the Worlds\u00a0(2005). Otto, pregnant at the time, believed she would have to turn down the role, but the script was reworked to accommodate her.<\/p>\n
Her next project was playing the lead in the Australian film\u00a0Danny Deckchair (2003). She then took on the Australian television\u00a0miniseries\u00a0Through My Eyes: The Lindy Chamberlain Story\u00a0(2004).\u00a0At the 2005\u00a0Logie Awards, Otto won Most Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series for her role.<\/p>\n
In 2007, Otto starred as Cricket Stewart, the wife of a successful director, in the television miniseries\u00a0The Starter Wife. She had a starring role in the 2008 American television series Cashmere Mafia, and Australian films such as In Her Skin and Blessed (2009). She starred opposite\u00a0Stephanie Sigman\u00a0and\u00a0Anthony LaPaglia\u00a0in the horror prequel\u00a0Annabelle: Creation. She portrayed\u00a0Zelda Spellman\u00a0in Netflix’s\u00a0Chilling Adventures of Sabrina\u00a0(2018-2020).<\/p>\n
She made her\u00a0theatrical\u00a0debut in the 1986 production of\u00a0The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant\u00a0for the\u00a0Sydney Theatre Company.[28]\u00a0Three 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\u00a0A Doll’s House\u00a0opposite her future husband Peter O’Brien. Otto’s performance earned her a 2003\u00a0Helpmann Award\u00a0nomination and the MO Award for “Best Female Actor in a Play”. Her next stage role was in the\u00a0psychological thriller\u00a0Boy Gets Girl\u00a0(2005).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Miranda Otto (born December 16, 1967) is an Australian actress. The daughter of actors Lindsay and Barry Otto and the sister of actress Gracie Otto, she began acting at age eighteen, and has performed in a variety of independent and major studio films. Her first major film appearance was in the 1986 film Emma’s War, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-7820","movie_engine_person","type-movie_engine_person","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\n