At just 22, New Zealand actor Thomasin McKenzie has already built up a seriously impressive CV starring in Leave No Trace, The King, Jojo Rabbit and Last Night in Soho.
McKenzie has just finished filming Eileen with Anne Hathaway based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Ottessa Moshfegh.
Set in 1960s Boston, the film trails a parasitic relationship between two women working at a juvenile detention facility.
Eileen premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2023.
One of McKenzie’s favourite films growing up was The Princess Diaries starring Hathaway so working with her was quite a moment, she says.
“I told her immediately” she tells Jesse Mulligan.
Photo: AFP
Songs
‘Booster Seat’ - Spacey Jane
I went up to Rhythm and Vines with a group of my best friends and Spacey Jane was performing and this song encapsulates the summer for me and just really fun times and when I hear it I think of dancing in the sun and singing with my friends.
‘The Loneliest Time’ - Carly Rae Jepson
I just love this song, that’s the only reason really, it makes me feel good, Carly Rae Jepson she came out with 'Call Me Maybe' a while ago I might have been 14 when that came out so when I saw she had some new music I wanted to check it out and I fell in love with this one.
‘My Boy’ - Marlon Williams
We did a film together called The True History of the Kelly Gang and he is so lovely, ever since making that film with him I’ve been a massive fan particularly of a previous album of his Make Way For Love it’s just so beautiful.
Books
Crying in Hmart - Michelle Zauner
It’s a memoir by Michelle Zauner who’s a member of the band Japanese Breakfast. I really enjoyed this book because Michelle talks about her mum who has passed away how she expressed her love for her daughter through food.
Song of Achilles - Madeline E Miller
I am obsessed with classics and Greek mythology and this book is a big part of that. I read it when I was working in New York in 2018 and it is the first book that ever made me cry, it’s just a beautiful, beautiful love story between Achilles and his right hand man Patroclus.
Dreamquake/DreamHunter - Elizabeth Knox
TV
The Bear
I couldn’t stop watching it, I often find it quite hard to get into series, but this is definitely one that I binged.
I loved how intense it was, I had to pause it multiple times throughout watching the series because it just gets so heightened, and there’s a lot of shouting and arguments and it’s just …crazy. It’s like Everything, Everywhere All at Once, once it starts it does not stop.
Life After Life
It’s a book adaptation based on the book Life After Life by Kate Atkinson directed by John Crowley it’s about reincarnation and past lives,
I play a young woman called Ursula who is born in the early 1900s and lived through World War I and World War II and she just keeps being reincarnated into the same life and each life is slightly different and it’s about the question of what if?
Film
Everything Everywhere All At Once
I remember seeing this film, I think I went to the Lighthouse to watch it, and I just sat back in awe at how they’d made it. I know what it is to be on a film set, and I know how challenging it is to make movies, and that was like a whole new level.
It’s like a fresh take on analysing family dynamics, especially taking a look at the relationship between the mother and the daughter.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
It was so ridiculous, and I was just smiling the entire time and I love the history of the film how no one was watching it at first and then and then it became a lace for people to express themselves.
Podcasts
How To Fail - Elizabeth Day
[Failure] is something that I fear but there are so many different kinds of failure, failure to some people might not be failure to me I think success if feeling love and being loved and enjoying life.
The Minefield - ABC
Hosts Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens negotiate ethical dilemmas, contradictory claims and unacknowledged complicities of modern life.
