Thomasin McKenzie
Birthdate: Jul 26, 2000
Birthplace: Wellington, New Zealand
Thomasin McKenzie (birthname: Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie) is a New Zealand-born actor who has worked with a list of distinguished filmmakers, beginning with fellow New Zealander Peter Jackson casting her in her debut feature role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy prequel, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014), co-written by Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro, and co-starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellan, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving and Orlando Bloom, and delivering a robust $962 million worldwide for Warner Bros. Pictures.
McKenzie was in the cast of a New Zealand fantasy horror movie, The Changeover (2017), co-directed by her parents, Miranda Harcourt and Stuart McKenzie, and written by Stuart, and co-starring Nicholas Galitzine, Erana James, Timothy Spall, Melanie Lynskey, and Lucy Lawless, and released by Radiant Films International.
McKenzie experienced her career breakthrough with her acclaimed performance opposite co-star Ben Foster in Debra Granik’s highly acclaimed drama, Leave No Trace (2018), adapted by Granik and Anne Rosellini from Peter Rock’s 2009 novel, My Abandonment, with Jeff Kobar and Dale Dickey, and which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and released by Bleecker Street to a $7.7 million gross, with McKenzie winning the Breakthrough Performance award from the National Board of Review.
McKenzie portrayed the Danish Queen Philippa in director/co-writer/producer David Michôd’s The King (2019), an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 and Henry V starring Timothée Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, Lily-Rose Depp, Robert Pattinson, and Ben Mendelsohn, and which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was released by Netflix.
Thomasin McKenzie enjoyed one of her biggest roles to date as a Jewish teen girl hiding from Nazis in director/writer/producer Taika Waititi’s WWII comedy-drama, Jojo Rabbit (2019), adapted from Christine Leunen’s 2008 book, Caging Skies, co-starring Roman Griffin Davis, Scarlett Johansson, Waititi, Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant, Alfie Allen and Sam Rockwell, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival (where it won the People’s Choice Award) and released to a $93.6 million gross by Fox Searchlight Pictures and earning six Oscar nominations (and winning the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Waititi).
McKenzie joined the ensemble of director/producer Justin Kurzel’s and screenwriter Shaun Grant’s screen version of Peter Carey’s 2000 novel, True History of the Kelly Gang (2019), starring George MacKay, Essie Davis, Nicholas Hoult, Orlando Schwerdt, Sean Keenan, Charlie Hunnam and Russell Crowe, launching at the Toronto Film Festival and released by Transmission Films/Picturehouse Entertainment/Stan.
McKenzie co-starred with Essie Davis in the New Zealand drama, The Justice of Bunny King (2021), with Amelie Baynes, Angus Stevens, Toni Potter, Tanea Heke and Ryan O’Kane under the debuting Gaysorn Thavat’s direction, and then McKenzie was cast as the teen daughter of Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps by director/writer/producer M. Night Shyamalan in Old (2021), Shyamalan’s screen version of Pierre Oscar Levy’s and Frederik Peeters’ graphic novel, Sandcastle, co-starring Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen, Aaron Pierre, Embeth Davidtz and Emun Elliott, and grossing an excellent $90 million for Universal Pictures.
McKenzie had one of her most striking roles to dare as co-star with Anya Taylor-Joy in director/co-writer/producer Edgar Wright’s psychological horror movie, Last Night in Soho (2021), with Matt Smith, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao, Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg, produced and released by Focus Features with co-producers Film4/Perfect World Pictures/Working Title Films/Complete Fiction Pictures.
Thomasin McKenzie continued to work with major filmmakers when she was cast by fellow New Zealander, director/writer/producer Jane Campion, in her striking adaptation of Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel, The Power of the Dog (2021), co-starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee, launching in competition at the Venice Film Festival (where Campion won the Best Direction Lion), earning 12 Oscar nominations (with only one win for director Campion) and released by Netflix.
McKenzie delivered a fascinating lead performance in the title role of director/producer William Oldroyd’s big-screen adaptation of screenwriter/producer Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2015 novel, Eileen (2023), co-starring Shea Whigham, Marin Ireland, Owen Teague and Anne Hathaway, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival and released by Neon/Focus Features/Universal Pictures to a $1.7 million gross.
McKenzie landed a top supporting role in director/co-writer/producer Mona Fastvold’s musical historical drama, The Testament of Ann Lee (2025), co-written and produced by Fastvold’s creative partner, Brady Corbet, starring Amanda Seyfried, Lewis Pullman, Tim Blake Nelson, Christopher Abbott, Stacy Martin, Matthew Beard, Viola Prettejohn and David Cale, premiering at the Venice Film Festival and released by Searchlight Pictures. McKenzie co-starred in the spoof, Fackham Hall (2025), co-starring Ben Radcliffe, with Katherine Waterston, Lizzie Hopley, Emma Laird, Damian Lewis, and Tom Felton under Jim O’Hanlon’s direction, and released widely by Bleecker Street.
Thomasin McKenzie co-starred with Maika Monroe and Jason Isaacs under Zachary Wigon’s direction in writer Virginia Feito’s screen adaptation of her own novel, Victorian Psycho (date to be announced), and then McKenzie had a leading role in the ensemble of director/writer/producer Paul Greengrass’s dramatization of the English Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, The Uprising (date to be announced), starring Andrew Garfield, Katherine Waterston, Jamie Bell, Cosmo Jarvis, Jonny Lee Miller, Woody Norman, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Stanley Townsend and Sky Yang, and which was the rare non-horror movie produced by Jason Blum’s Blumhouse Productions and released by Focus Features (U.S.)/Leonine Studios (Germany).
McKenzie joined the striking cast of director/co-writer/producer Robert D. Krzykowski’s adaptation of John Gardner’s fictional version of Beowulf, Grendel (date to be announced), co-starring Jeff Bridges, Bryan Cranston, Sam Elliott, Dave Bautista, Aidan Turner, and T Bone Burnett, and which was produced by The Jim Henson Company and Ashland Hill Media Finance.
Thomasin McKenzie Photos and Videos
Personal life
Thomasin McKenzie was born and raised in Wellington, New Zealand, by her parents, Stuart (a director) and Miranda Harcourt (an actor). McKenzie has two fellow actors as siblings: older brother, Peter (also a journalist), and younger sister, Davida. McKenzie’s grandmother is actor Dame Kate Harcourt, and her grandfather is Harcourts International real estate company founder Peter Harcourt. McKenzie attended Samuel Marsden Collegiate School and graduated in 2018. McKenzie has been in a relationship with photographer Ben Sarikaya. McKenzie moved from Wellington to Islington, United Kingdom, in 2023. McKenzie’s height is 5’ 5”. McKenzie’s estimated net worth is $4 million.
Thomasin McKenzie Movies
actor
Upcoming (1)
- 2025 |
The Testament of Ann Lee
asMary Partington
Ann Lee, the founding leader of the Shaker Movement, proclaimed as the female Christ by her followers. Depicts her establishment of a utopian society and the Shakers' worship through song and dance, based on real events.
Previous (6)
- 2025 |
Fackham Hall
asRose Davenport
A new porter forms an odd bond with the youngest daughter of a well-known UK family. As the Davenport family, headed by Lord and Lady Davenport, deals with the epic disaster of the wedding of their eldest daughter to her caddish cousin.
- 2023 |
- 2021 |
Last Night in Soho
asEloise
Aspiring fashion designer Eloise is mysteriously able to return to 1960s London, where she encounters dazzling wannabe singer Sandie. But the glamour is not as it seems, and the dreams of the past crack and splinter into something darker.
- 2021 |
- 2019 |
Jojo Rabbit
asElsa
A young German boy in the Hitler Youth, whose hero and imaginary friend is the country's dictator, is shocked to discover that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl in their home.
- 2018 |
Leave No Trace
asTom
A father and his seventeen-year-old daughter are living an ideal existence in a vast urban park in Portland, Oregon when a small mistake derails their lives forever.
Facts About Thomasin McKenzie
Influences: Thomasin McKenzie has noted that her key influences as an actor are Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews, Jennifer Lawrence, and Michelle Williams.
When I Grow Up…: McKenzie, although she grew up in an acting family, didn’t want to be an actor as a young girl but instead wished to work with animals as a veterinarian or zookeeper.
Thomasin McKenzie News
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