{"id":487697,"date":"2026-06-20T23:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T23:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/487697\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T23:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T23:37:08","slug":"actor-davida-mckenzie-on-following-in-her-mother-miranda-harcourts-footsteps-and-working-with-taika-waititi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/487697\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor Davida McKenzie on following in her mother, Miranda Harcourt\u2019s, footsteps and working with Taika Waititi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Her latest role is another nail\u2013biter, the Australian indie horror feature Leviticus. It premiered to strong reviews at this year\u2019s Sundance Film Festival and looks set to signal to the industry that she\u2019s one to watch. <\/p>\n

She might be the youngest member of New Zealand\u2019s acting royal family \u2013 but she doesn\u2019t want to deny her place in it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just proud of where I come from \u2013 there\u2019s no point trying to hide it,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n

\"SistersSisters Thomasin and Davida McKenzie in London in 2025. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s aware there might be comparisons \u2013 she looks strikingly similar to her sister, and even more so to her grandmother when she was her age \u2013 but they don\u2019t faze her any more. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve come to terms with it. I\u2019m proud of my family, really proud. My mum and dad have worked so hard to get where they are, and they\u2019re such smart people,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think I have my own path as my own actress. There are always so many roles out there and I\u2019m never going to get the same role as my sister.\u201d <\/p>\n

McKenzie is disarmingly polite, strikingly beautiful, and almost painfully sweet \u2013 so much so that during our interview I find myself rewording a question about her being a \u201cnepo baby\u201d, finding a way to dance around it. <\/p>\n

So, take two: does she feel this is truly her path, or simply the one she\u2019s grown into believing is hers? <\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, for me, there have always been moments of thinking, \u2018do I really want to do this? Am I just doing this because my family does this?\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

But McKenzie says the more she puts herself out there and bolsters her experience, the more she realises it is her calling. <\/p>\n

\"LeviticusLeviticus stars Jeremy Blewitt, Joe Bird and Davida McKenzie. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been acting pretty much my whole life. My mum put my sister, my brother and I into auditions for pocket money, which is funny. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we didn\u2019t really say, \u2018Hey, we want to do this\u2019. We\u2019ve just always been doing it,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n

\u201cSure, I did get into acting in a pretty unique way, but I really do enjoy it and love it with my whole being.\u201d <\/p>\n

Was there ever a contingency, or a consideration of a career in STEM? What might her life have looked like if she hadn\u2019t embraced it? Would she, like a reluctant royal, have had her inheritance cut and shipped off to Montecito? <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, my family were always so supportive of whatever I decided to do,\u201d she says, laughing. <\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t deny she\u2019s been handed something of an acting golden ticket \u2013 the chance to learn from her mother, Harcourt, widely regarded as one of Aotearoa\u2019s finest actors, and who also serves as her acting coach.<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum helps me with every single audition and self\u2013tape that I do. She\u2019s always my reader. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s always helping me with pretty much every role I do.\u201d <\/p>\n

Harcourt also served as an acting coach on the set of Leviticus, which has been described as a queer supernatural horror set in a conservative Australian town, helping some of the younger cast members. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t on set when she was doing the coaching \u2013 I was overseas,\u201d McKenzie says. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut [co\u2013stars] Joe [Bird], Stacy [Clausen] and Jeremy [Blewitt] got to work with her, and they all loved her, so it felt a bit like a family affair.\u201d <\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing we know mums are good at, it\u2019s imparting life advice. And McKenzie\u2019s has been there to do just that when she\u2019s experienced the industry\u2019s lows. <\/p>\n

\u201cI lost out on two roles last year \u2013 there\u2019s always a kind of hope that you build up and then when I didn\u2019t get the roles, I was just distraught,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum explained it\u2019s kind of like a heartbreak: you lose that person, you can\u2019t reach out to them in the same way again. And that kind of really shifted my mindset about it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"DameDame Miranda Harcourt. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

McKenzie says she\u2019s growing accustomed to those \u201cnos\u201d, but it\u2019s the thrill of the \u201cyes\u201d that keeps her going. <\/p>\n

Thankfully, she got a life\u2013changing \u201cyes\u201d when she was cast, while still in high school, in the yet\u2013to\u2013be\u2013released Klara and the Sun, directed by Waititi. The cast also features Hollywood stars Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Natasha Lyonne and Steve Buscemi. <\/p>\n

The film was shot at the beginning of 2024 \u2013 McKenzie\u2019s final year at high school, where she was proudly a house captain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be in Auckland on Klara and the Sun and then fly back down to Wellington to go to the swimming sports and lead my house and then back. So it was a pretty intense time, but I wouldn\u2019t trade it for the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

The teen says the scale of production on that set was something she\u2019d not experienced before, and working with the Oscar\u2013winning director was hugely influential. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was so great. Taika was just so fun and lovely, and we all just had the best time.\u201d <\/p>\n

While Klara in the Sun was filmed on a studio set, she says Leviticus was much smaller and shot on location, giving her a taste of both levels of production. <\/p>\n

Keen to strike while the iron\u2019s hot, she has recently moved to Sydney to chase the next acting gig. <\/p>\n

\"McKenzieMcKenzie is growing accustomed to those \u201cnos\u201d, but the thrill of the \u201cyes\u201d keeps her going. <\/p>\n

So, what is that role? Where to next for the actor on the rise? <\/p>\n

\u201cSean Baker (Anora) is definitely up there for me,\u201d McKenzie says of directors she\u2019d love to work with and Greta Gerwig (Barbie) is amazing as well. I love Greta.\u201d <\/p>\n

Despite just naming two of the biggest award\u2013winning directors in Hollywood right now, McKenzie says she\u2019s not really interested in \u201cthe big Hollywood break\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of scary to me. I don\u2019t have any hopes or aspirations of being in the spotlight in that way,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just love acting. The feeling I get when I step on set, or you\u2019re in the hair and makeup and the costume, and you can transform into this new character. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a unique and special feeling, and I haven\u2019t been able to find that anywhere else.\u201d <\/p>\n

Leviticus is out in New Zealand theatres on June 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Her latest role is another nail\u2013biter, the Australian indie horror feature Leviticus. It premiered to strong reviews at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3376,95,430,244598,156,29467,593,5504,57511,13687,6101,34746,1364,50242,78,10750,302,700,440,61340,11938,6178,13617,111,139,69,90,16513,6180,97090,14907,29715,39545,37105,102,19135],"class_list":["post-487697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-actor","tag-and","tag-celebrities","tag-davida","tag-entertainment","tag-familiar","tag-film","tag-following","tag-footsteps","tag-franchise","tag-good","tag-harcourts","tag-her","tag-highly","tag-in","tag-instalment","tag-its","tag-latest","tag-local","tag-mckenzie","tag-miranda","tag-mother","tag-name","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-reason","tag-shes","tag-sounds","tag-successful","tag-taika","tag-terms","tag-waititi","tag-with","tag-working"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}