Two Weddings and A Film

The star of Love Child and The Sapphires was married twice last year – once to her real life fiancé and once on screen. Miranda Tapsell tells Genevieve Gannon about bringing her dreams to life.

Four years ago actor Miranda Tapsell took a trip to the Top End. Usually, when the Larrakia Tiwi woman heads north, she is on a journey home – to the sultry city of Darwin, where she was born; or the tiny town of Jabiru, tucked in the craggy wilderness of Kakadu National Park, where she spent much of her childhood, swimming and crabbing with her mother; or to the unspoiled Tiwi Islands, where her mother’s family lives. But this time, she was on a mission. She had a proposal tucked in her bag and an important meeting pencilled into her diary. She always makes appointments in pencil because the entertainment industry is so fickle, but this meeting – with Northern Territory Tourism – was unbreakable. She had an idea, and needed money to get it off the ground. She was determined to be the change she wanted to see in the world.

“I made that speech and I had to walk the talk,” she says.

“That speech” was a cry for change in Australia’s film and television industry, delivered on TV’s night of nights, the TV Week Logies. Miranda’s performance as Martha Tennant in the retro drama Love Child had earned her the titles Most Outstanding Newcomer and Best New Talent, and she had seized her moment in the spotlight to make a call for greater representation of all Australians on screens.

“I had this sick feeling in my stomach before I went on stage,” she says. “Then I went: ‘Okay, I might upset people and my career might go quiet but what’s the point of having this moment if you’re not going to take it?’”

Dressed in grey and silver evening wear, the newcomer clutched her trophy and, with a quiver in her voice, pleaded her case. “Put more beautiful people of colour on TV and connect viewers in ways which transcend race and unite us,” she said. “That’s the real Team Australia.”