Pia Miranda: ‘I was incredibly famous but still struggling to pay my rent’

This story is part of the July 9 edition of Sunday Life.See all 14 stories.

Back in 2000, Pia Miranda had the kind of breakout role actors dream about. Playing troubled teenager Josephine in the Australian feature film Looking for Alibrandi (based on the novel by Melina Marchetta), she quickly became a household name. But looking back on that time in her life, Miranda reveals that her instant fame wasn’t all it appeared to be.

“When Looking for Alibrandi came out, my life quickly changed,” she says. “I was incredibly famous but still struggling to pay my rent. It was stressful. I was recognised on the street but financial stability didn’t come my way because of it, and that was a shock.”

Although she won an AFI Award for Best Actress in 2000 for the role, her acting career didn’t go to plan either; there were periods in the mid-2000s when Miranda auditioned up to 15 times without landing a single job.

“I had 12 months where I didn’t do any acting at all,” she says. “I look back and can say I have been successful and done some amazing things, but there was a lot of sitting around the house staring at the phone, too.”

Miranda went on to appear in six episodes of the popular Channel Seven hospital drama All Saints, and seven episodes of the Network Ten hit The Secret Life of Us. She also had a small part in the locally made feature film Queen of the Damned (her scene got cut from the cinema release but is included in the DVD version), and roles in the films Garage Days and Travelling Light.

Greta Scacchi, Pia Miranda and Anthony LaPaglia in Looking for Alibrandi.

Now, two decades on, Miranda has returned, more confident than ever, in Network Ten’s four-part thriller Heat, playing a late-40s married mother in the midst of a sexual awakening.

The series tells the story of two families that find themselves trapped by a bushfire while on holiday, and the fire metaphor certainly sets the scene for the inflamed secrets that tug at the core of this drama, which also stars Darren McMullen. Heat is all about family skeletons, desire, infidelity and wondering what life’s all about after you get married and have kids.

The role is also an opportunity for Miranda to make peace with her past and all the times she beat herself up for not scoring major parts. A younger version would have blamed her half-Italian heritage and European features, and not being beautiful enough, but the married mother of two has taught her inner voice to be kinder. “I am much more secure in who I am now,” says Miranda, who recently turned 50.

In order to take on the role of Sarah in Heat, Miranda asked her mother Susan to move into the family home to help look after the kids – Lily, aged 14, and James, nine – she shares with husband Luke Hanigan.

“It was such an intense role and I couldn’t focus on much else,” Miranda says. “Mum moved in for two months. Between my crazy hours and Luke’s [he works on the set of MasterChef Australia], our lives are so unpredictable. It was nice to have Mum give our kids continuity of care when we weren’t around.”

“It’s bizarre to think that everything my dad ran away from is what made my career.”

PIA MIRANDA

It was a photo of Miranda on a cinema popcorn box that caught the attention of her now-husband in 2000. As the frontman of pop-rock group Lo-Tel, Hanigan asked her if she’d like to be in the video clip for his band’s song Teenager of the Year, which appeared on the Looking for Alibrandi soundtrack. The rest is a romance with a happy ending.

“We hung out for a long time before we got together,” says Miranda, who first kissed Hanigan at the ARIAs in 2000, then tied the knot with him in an Elvis chapel in Las Vegas in 2001. “We fell into a groove and have grown up together. We’ve been reflecting on how lucky we are because we both have big birthday milestones this year.”

She adds that both feel fortunate to have found each other and created a secure family – they now call Altona, in Melbourne’s western suburbs, home. “We laugh a lot and he will watch Real Housewives of New Jersey with me, which I appreciate in a man.

“I still get excited when he walks in the door, too. I text him incessantly at the end of his workday, asking what time he’ll be home. It’s a lucky position to be in.”

Miranda is cooking lamb shanks and tidying the house while she takes this call (the kids are at school). The aroma takes her back to a childhood spent in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, where she scooted between the home of her paternal Italian grandmother, Angelina, and that of her Australian maternal grandparents, Kathleen and Harry.

Having been born in Melbourne, Miranda moved with her family to Darwin and Canberra for father Vince’s work before they returned to Melbourne when she was 12. Vince had been bullied, dubbed the “spaghetti muncher”, when he migrated from the Mediterranean island of Lipari to Australia. As a consequence, he chose not to enrol either of his daughters (Miranda has an older sister, Nicole) into Saturday Italian classes because he didn’t want them to have an accent and get picked on.

Miranda notes that while her Italian heritage has been rewarding for her, “Dad had a completely different experience … It’s bizarre to think that everything my dad ran away from is what made my career.”

Vince had a stroke 20 years ago and is now in care, but still a big part of the family. “I am the same age Dad was when he had the stroke,” Miranda reflects. “It was definitely the reason I wanted to keep fit and healthy and do Survivor [she appeared in the 2019 series]. It is always in the back of my mind that what happened to my dad could happen to me.”

It was during her stint on Ten’s Survivor – in which Miranda was crowned the winner and took home $500,000 for her effort – that she met her best friend Janine Allis, founder of Boost Juice. The pair formed a close bond and Miranda, who turned 50 in June, chose to celebrate the landmark birthday early with a trip to Milan with Allis in March.

“I didn’t expect to find a lifelong friend on reality TV, and so late in my life. Not a day goes by where we don’t call or text each other. We ate our way through Milan!” she says, laughing.

Miranda’s metaphorical plate is also full to the brim. She has been filming another series, Riptide, for Network Ten, is a contestant on Channel Seven’s Dancing with the Stars, and has a memoir slated for an October release. Titled Finding My Bella Vita, the book is a charming dive into her personal and public lives. It addresses the highs and lows that came with fame and the ensuing self-doubt, all told with plenty of humour.

Pia Miranda, with her dancing partner Declan Taylor, on the set of Dancing with the Stars.

Her stories are linked to food memories – the Italian and Australian classic dishes that play a huge part in her life. However, she stresses that it’s still very much a work in progress. “I haven’t had much time to finish the book as I’ve been working.”

The process of getting her voice down on paper and not hiding behind characters on the screen was cathartic for Miranda. “I majored in writing at university and it’s always been in the back of my mind as something I wanted to come back to,” she says.

She also had a pragmatic reason for penning a memoir. “As I get older, there are fewer roles. I find myself wondering what else I can do. Relying on acting is hard when you’re young, and it’s even harder when you get older!”

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