Most actors — whether they’ll admit it or not — have a career moment that got under their skin. For the Australian actress Maia Mitchell, it was the standing ovation she and her fellow cast members received at the end of an “excellent” theatre
production run. The show wasn’t on Broadway (it wasn’t even in a major capital city). Mitchell was 14 years old and the audience was on its feet, cheering for a performance of “Hating Alison Ashley” in which Mitchell played the titular character. “I honestly think that’s the feeling I’m always chasing,” she says now.
Mitchell grew up in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, where she spent countless hours in nature with her friends and family between dance classes and drama lessons. “I was a bit of a nervous kid,” she says. The drama classes, run by the acting coach and owner of the Lismore-based drama school Theatre Theatre Productions Angela Mitchell (no relation), allowed Mitchell to “find my friends and find my people, and feel confident and comfortable on stage and [in] expressing myself”. Her talent was evident early and she quickly landed roles in the Australian children’s television series “Mortified”, “K9”, “Trapped” and the latter’s sequel, “Castaway”. At 31, Mitchell has now been performing professionally for two decades.
As Katharine Hepburn in “The Philadelphia Story” (1940) in a Bottega Veneta jacket, skirt, pants and shoes; and Bulgari watch.
As Katharine Hepburn in “The Philadelphia Story” (1940) in a Bottega Veneta jacket, skirt, pants and shoes; and Bulgari watch.
When we speak over Zoom the day before her
T Australia photoshoot, Mitchell is makeup free, her hair wet, wearing a knitted jumper and glasses. She has just wrapped a day’s shoot for the second season of Hulu’s hit period piece “The Artful Dodger” and beside her is an oversized prosthetic wound for her to practice suturing on. The next day she will play dress-up on the T Australia set, channelling a hit list of her big-screen heroes, including Doris Day’s Calamity Jane, Katharine Hepburn in “The Philadelphia Story”, Elizabeth Taylor in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine”. “All the characters [I chose] have a freedom to them,” Mitchell says. “There’s something really natural about all of these women and their portrayals, which I feel is really brave.”
Slipping into character through costume is nothing new for Mitchell, whose preparation process typically begins with the visual elements of a role (she says Pinterest boards help). Mitchell views wardrobe as not only an essential part of world building, but a gateway to the heart of a character. “When you’re stepping into these costumes you kind of shed your own skin,” she says. “[You’re] wearing a corset and four skirts and a wig, and something happens where you hold yourself differently. If you’re lucky and you get to have an accent, you’re suddenly speaking differently and moving differently. It’s like a forced shift that happens in your energy.”
A corset is required for her role as Lady Belle Fox in “The Artful Dodger”. The series is set in 1850s Australia in the fictional penal colony of Port Victory and is based on characters from Charles Dickens’s novel “Oliver Twist”. Mitchell’s Belle harbours aspirations to become the colony’s first female surgeon (hence the suture practice). It’s her first major role after nearly a decade playing Callie Jacob (who changes her name to Callie Adams Foster) on the American series “The Fosters” and its spin-off, “Good Trouble” (Mitchell relocated to Los Angeles when she was 18). Prior to landing “The Artful Dodger”, with the trappings of teen-drama typecasting closing in, Mitchell decided she needed to be strategic about her next role choice. “I’d been saying, ‘I want to shoot something at home [in Australia], I want to do a period piece, I want to do an accent,’ ” she says. “It all happened. It was amazing — it was like kismet.”
As Michelle Williams in “Blue Valentine” (2010) in a Bottega Veneta jacket, top, jeans and shoes.
As Claire Danes in “Romeo + Juliet” (1996) in a Christopher Esber dress, christopheresber. com.au; stylist’s own wings; and Christian Dior shoes, dior.com.
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The Covid-19 pandemic brought Mitchell back to the Northern Rivers after 10 years overseas, as she traded the LA celebrity industrial complex for a property “out bush”. “I needed to buy some land and be in nature and ground myself,” she says. “Being over there [in the US] for so long, I ignored a lot of red flags to my nervous system and I really pushed through a lot of [uncomfortable] spaces that just weren’t aligned with me.” Mitchell describes feeling stuck between two versions of herself while in LA. “I felt like there was an LA Maia and then a Lismore Maia, and there was no way of marrying the two,” she says. She tried to “shapeshift and people-please. When I look back on it, it does make me pretty sad, because I definitely didn’t feel comfortable in any of the spaces I was in, except for when I was on set working,” she continues. There, at the tail end of her 20s — an age when many actors throw themselves into accelerating their careers, Mitchell pressed pause, taking a hiatus. She found sobriety and endeavoured to treat her body better. “There’s a lot of healing that happened, and I feel like that had to happen in the Northern Rivers,” she says.
Moving back home put Mitchell on a growing list of actors who shun Hollywood life in favour of literally greener pastures. Tilda Swinton lives in a town of fewer than 10,000 people in the Scottish Highlands. Carey Mulligan speaks fondly of her farmhouse in Devon, England. It becomes clear during our conversation, however, that any comparisons to contemporary Hollywood stars aren’t necessarily welcome. As the conversation turns to the actor Timothée Chalamet’s recent Screen Actors Guild award acceptance speech, Mitchell is adamant that “greats” status isn’t something she aspires to. “I’ve done a lot of work on myself to shed that,” she says. “In LA, it was impossible to not be outwardly focused and give too much meaning to the external validation of it all. That’s why I came home. I live on a [rural] property, and I try to only focus on putting myself in spaces that feel creatively safe and exciting, and the rest can go, honestly.”
As Grace Kelly in “To Catch a Thief” (1955) in a Christian Dior dress; antique earrings from Anne Schofield Antiques; and Giorgio Armani shoes, armani.com.
Mitchell now takes a church-and-state approach to her job: she goes to work, then she comes home to see her friends, most of whom aren’t in the industry. This remove has helped her to enjoy the duties of her job, such as press events. “It’s kind of like playing a character when you’re wearing these amazing gowns,” she says. “It almost feels like you’re playing the character of Maia the actress for a moment, and then I go back to Lismore and do my thing.”
Her thing, it transpires, would be familiar to many
31-year-olds. She walks the Byron coastline tracks. She’s close to her parents and relishes being part of the “strongest community”, Lismore, a town repeatedly devastated by flooding events. The regular floods have twice impacted Theatre Theatre, a place close to Mitchell’s heart. “After the floods [in early 2022], we were in there,” she says. “There was no electricity and there was a group of kids — we were in there with flashlights running our lines in the dark.” The place is still standing, however, and Mitchell now helps to run its acting classes.
“I would never have thought I’d be 31 and single — and happily single — and living in the bush with no kids,” Mitchell says. “That was not on the cards.” She smiles. “And I love how my life has turned out now. It feels really freeing.”
As Natalie Portman in “Léon: The Professional” (1994) in a Kate Spade New York dress, katespade.com; Tommy Hilfiger rainboots, au.tommy. com; and stylist’s own choker.
As Elizabeth Taylor in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958) in a Beare Park dress, bearepark.com; Léays slip (available from mid-May), leays. com.au; and Bulgari necklace and rings.
