37 Facts About Miranda Otto

Miranda Otto was born on 16 December 1967 and is an Australian actress.

Miranda Otto is the daughter of actors Barry and Lindsay Otto and the paternal half-sister of actress Gracie Otto.

Miranda Otto made her major film debut in Emma's War in 1987 in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia's bush country during World War II.

Miranda Otto rose to fame in the early 2000s for playing Eowyn in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film series, based on the classic fantasy novel of the same name by English author JR R Tolkien.

Miranda Otto was born on 16 December 1967 in Brisbane and was raised there and in Newcastle.

Miranda Otto briefly lived in Hong Kong following her parents' divorce at age six.

Miranda Otto spent weekends and holidays with her father in Sydney and developed an interest in acting through him.

Miranda Otto appeared in several plays at the Nimrod Theatre, which attracted the attention of casting director Faith Martin.

Subsequently, Miranda Otto received a role in the 1986 World War II drama Emma's War.

Miranda Otto had wanted to be a ballerina but was forced to abandon this goal due to moderate scoliosis.

Miranda Otto graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney in 1990.

Miranda Otto's appearance garnered Otto her first Australian Film Institute nomination for the best actress award the following year.

Miranda Otto was drawn to the film because she was "fascinated by the period and the people who came out of it".

Miranda Otto retreated to her home in Newcastle for almost a year, during which she painted her mother's house.

Miranda Otto played Dimity Hurley, a lonely young woman who competes with her older sister Vicki-Ann for the attention of a famous DJ from Brisbane.

Miranda Otto starred in the 1997 films The Well and Doing Time for Patsy Cline.

When Miranda Otto received the film script for The Well, she refused to read it, fearing that she would not get the part.

Miranda 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 low-budget Australian film required Miranda Otto to perform country music standards and received mixed reviews from film critics.

In 1997, Miranda Otto began dating her Doing Time for Patsy Cline co-star Richard Roxburgh.

Miranda Otto played Ronnie, a pregnant woman recently abandoned by her boyfriend.

The film was a critical success in Australia, and Miranda Otto was nominated for her fourth Australian Film Institute Award.

Also in 2001, Miranda Otto appeared in the BBC adaptation of Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now, as a strong-willed American Southerner.

In 1999, Miranda Otto was cast as Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, after Uma Thurman turned down the role.

Miranda Otto's character was introduced in the trilogy's second film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in 2002 and appeared in the third film, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the following year.

Miranda Otto then took on the Australian television miniseries Through My Eyes: The Lindy Chamberlain Story.

Miranda Otto was cast as Chamberlain, and her husband, Peter O'Brien, was cast as prosecutor Ian Barker.

In 2007, Miranda Otto starred as Cricket Stewart, the wife of a successful director, in the television miniseries The Starter Wife.

In 2013 Miranda Otto played the role of American poet Elizabeth Bishop opposite Gloria Pires in Brazilian director Bruno Barreto's Reaching for the Moon.

Miranda Otto portrayed Zelda Spellman in Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

On 31 May 2020, Miranda Otto joined Josh Gad's YouTube series Reunited Apart, which reunites the cast of popular films through video-conferencing and promotes donations to non-profit charities, with her fellow Lord of the Rings cast and crew members.

On 13 November 2023, Miranda Otto was announced for ABC drama series Ladies In Black.

In 2024, Miranda Otto reprised her role as Eowyn from Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film series in the anime fantasy film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, a prequel directed by Kenji Kamiyama, to which she served as the narrator.

Miranda Otto made her theatrical debut in the 1986 production of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant for the Sydney Theatre Company.

Miranda Otto's performance earned her a 2003 Helpmann Award nomination and the MO Award for "Best Female Actor in a Play".

Miranda 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 that Miranda Otto could appear in it.