‘Sometimes it fills that gap for people’: Miranda Otto on the dangerous appeal of cult leaders

This story is part of the May 21 edition of Sunday Life.See all 13 stories.

Miranda Otto needs a moment. Talking about her dad, the celebrated actor Barry Otto, has brought raw emotions to the surface during our Zoom interview from Los Angeles about her new drama series, The Clearing.

When she returns, Otto explains that it will be tough filming an interview for a documentary that her sister Gracie is making about their octogenarian father. Just as it is for many of us, it’s been difficult watching a parent age. “It’s really a celebration of my dad, who I love very much,” she says, still emotional. “Look, he’s great, he’s happy, he’s healthy, he’s good. But I miss parts of him.”

A NIDA graduate who grew up mostly in Sydney and followed her father into acting, Otto has been bringing heart and emotional vulnerability to film, television and theatre since she was a teenager.

Her most unforgettable character has been Éowyn in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, delivering the triumphant line “I am no man” as she drives her sword into the Witch-king of Angmar. But she has also been memorable as, among other roles, a shy waitress who falls for a DJ in the Australian film Love Serenade, Lindy Chamberlain in the miniseries Through My Eyes and, just a couple of years ago, a traumatised dairy farmer in Fires.

Common Hours dress, $1900. Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co “Open Bottle” pendant, $2000, and cuff, $2850. Credit: Manolo Campion

At 55, Otto’s career is thriving. And it’s not just since production resumed following COVID shutdowns. “I had a really busy pandemic,” she says.

Just before that dark time, Otto had 2½ years playing a witch in the Netflix supernatural series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, which meant regularly shuttling between the shoot in Vancouver and Los Angeles, her home with actor husband Peter O’Brien and daughter Darcey. It finished after two seasons when the pandemic began to bite.

“We upped sticks very early in March 2020 and came back to Australia,” Otto says. “We were back there for a year and a half. A bunch of work that I’ve done since Sabrina was during that time.”

Her recent Australian projects include the Celeste Barber series Wellmania (for Netflix), Jeffrey Walker’s film The Portable Door (for Stan) and Danny and Michael Philippou’s buzzy horror film Talk to Me (in cinemas in July). Internationally, she is returning as Éowyn to narrate the animated film The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which is out next year.

This month comes The Clearing, an eight-part series that has Otto playing an intimidating cult leader, Adrienne Beaufort, who presides over an extended family of children with matching blond hair. The story centres on a former cult member (Teresa Palmer) who has to face her traumatic past when a young girl (Lily LaTorre) is abducted.

The series, which also stars Guy Pearce, Claudia Karvan, Kate Mulvany, Mark Coles Smith, Xavier Samuel and Hazem Shammas, is adapted from a novel by J.P. Pomare that was inspired by the notorious Victorian cult The Family, led by Anne Hamilton-Byrne. Its existence was uncovered when police raided a property in 1987 and removed a group of blond children after allegations of abuse.

Otto is quick to say the series is a work of fiction and that Beaufort is not based on the late Hamilton-Byrne, who gathered up children through adoption scams, drugged them with LSD and subjected them to beatings.

The challenge playing a role she describes as “a complete construct” was working out what motivates a cult leader. “I really didn’t want to forgive her actions or apologise for her in some way, because a lot of what she does in the story is pretty terrible,” Otto says. “But I was interested, as the story progresses, to try and really examine, ‘who is this character, where does she come from and why is she putting these people through this?’ ”

She realised Beaufort manipulated the people around her to create extreme emotions that she fed off, like “some sort of emotional vampire”.

Otto says she has been fascinated with cults since growing up with an aunt who was a member of the so-called Orange People, led by Indian mystic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. She has read Breaking the Spell, Australian Jane Stork’s memoir about joining that cult, then eventually breaking free.

“A lot of what she does in the story is pretty terrible,” says Otto, who plays fictional cult leader Adrienne Beaufort in The Clearing.Credit: Disney

When I mention I’ve known young Sydney journalists who have dallied with the likes of EST and Kenja over the years, Otto says cults attract people who are seekers and searchers. “It’s actually playing on a lot of peoples’ very good instincts: ‘how can I find a community?’; ‘I’m not fulfilled, there has to be more in life than this’; ‘what’s my spiritual path?’; ‘how can I be a better person?’; ‘how can I be happier?’

“Sometimes religion will fill that gap for people. Sometimes it’s the person who taps you on the shoulder and offers you answers. Someone who may not start out to be a cult leader but ends up being a cult leader.”

“Sometimes religion will fill that gap for people. Sometimes it’s the person who taps you on the shoulder and offers you answers.”

MIRANDA OTTO

Otto mentions NXIVM, the American cult founded by Keith Raniere, who was sentenced to 120 years in prison for sex trafficking and other crimes in 2020. “There were a lot of actors in that one because, as actors, you’re constantly being judged and assessed,” she says. “To have a community that supposedly has your back would be very attractive.”

Work brought Otto back to Sydney just before Easter, which meant she could share a second round of 18th birthday celebrations with Darcey.

Frame leather jacket, POA. By Malene Birger leather skirt, $1205, from Christensen Copenhagen. Elsa Peretti for Tiffany & Co “Snake” necklace, $10,100.Credit: Manolo Campion

“She actually turned 18 when she was in Rome, travelling with her jazz band from school,” Otto says. “They were doing a tour in Italy. Pete travelled to Rome so he could be there on her birthday but I was in Australia working.”

Is Darcey another budding actor for the family as well as a musician? “I don’t know whether she wants to or not,” Otto says. “She’s certainly done bits and pieces over the years at school and she did a bit on [SBS series] The Unusual Suspects when we were back in Australia.

“But then she looks at someone like Gracie [who directed the film Seriously Red and five episodes of The Clearing] and she’s worked on video production things at her high school. She’s also interested in that side of the camera – editing and direction – so it will be interesting to see what she decides. Who knows? She might do something completely different.”

Otto has thoroughly enjoyed living in Los Angeles. “It’s been great for me as an actor because I’ve gotten to work with so many people from around the world,” she says.

“There’s been so much work over the last 10 years and I’ve gotten to do things that I would never have gotten to do back in Australia.”

That work has included being a series regular on the American version of Rake, Homeland and 24: Legacy as well as appearing in such films as Annabelle: Creation, Zoe, The Chaperone, The Silence and Downhill.

“To have a community that supposedly has your back would be very attractive,” says Otto of the allure of cults.Credit: Disney

The family returned to LA after the worst of COVID had passed to find that some of their Australian friends had decided not to come back.

“I have to say there’s a hole for me here now,” Otto says. “A lot of the Aussie friends who were a constant in our lives have gone back to Australia and I really do miss having them here.”

When Darcey finishes school in June, Otto can see herself spending more time in this country, working and spending time with family and friends.

“[After that] I’m not locked into the whole train of ‘school this and school that’,” she says. “Over the years I’ve had to turn lots of things down that I just couldn’t emotionally do when I felt like I wanted to be with my family.”

The boom in high-quality shows for streaming services has meant more strong roles for female actors over 40.

“Over the years I’ve had to turn lots of things down that I just couldn’t emotionally do when I felt like I wanted to be with my family.”

MIRANDA OTTO

Otto says: “It started in some ways in America with cable, when a lot of heavyweight actresses started doing TV shows because they could craft a really interesting, complex character over a long period and they found that more creatively fulfilling than playing bits and pieces of roles in films. Those things were such hits that [the industry] realised there’s an audience for complex female characters.”

In the past month, Jane Fonda, 85, has starred in two movies that have opened in Australian cinemas, 80 for Brady and Book Club: The Next Chapter. At 80, Harrison Ford stars in the series Shrinking and is playing Indiana Jones again. Fellow octogenarians Judi Dench, Morgan Freeman, Maggie Smith, Lily Tomlin, Anthony Hopkins and Al Pacino are still in demand. And at 91, Rita Moreno seems busier than half of Hollywood.

Christian Dior tunic, $4000.Credit: Manolo Campion

All of this suggests there’s no such thing as a retirement age for actors.

“There shouldn’t be any retirement age,” Otto insists. “We’re acting. We’re representing life. Surely we need to represent life in all its many forms and stages. Early on, I wanted to be a dancer but there’s really an age where that becomes very hard to maintain. You tap out in terms of physicality. It’s hard to keep going.

“But I’ve always felt like acting is something you can do forever.”

Fashion editor, Penny McCarthy; Hair, Renya Xydis; Make-up, Linda Jefferyes for Dior; Styling assistant, Emmerson Conrad

The Clearing screens on Disney + from May 24.

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Email Garry Maddox at [e-mail] and follow him on Twitter at @gmaddox.