Playing Audrey Hepburn was a lifetime dream, New Zealand actor Thomasin McKenzie says.
“I’ve been an Audrey Hepburn fan for as long as I can remember. The first film of hers I watched, I think, was actually Sabrina.
“Ironically, because in my Audrey Hepburn film, that’s the film that Audrey is about to make.”
McKenzie stars in the new biopic, Dinner with Audrey, which centres on Hepburn’s relationship with fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy in the early 1950s just before she became a global Hollywood star and fashion icon.
It was a daunting role for the 25-year-old actor to take on, she told RNZ’s Afternoons.
“The prospect of playing her was exciting to me, but also very, very, very intimidating. And it took me a while to really accept that it was something that I was going to do. And I almost had to come to terms with it.”
Hepburn, the star of classics Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Roman Holiday and Funny Face, had a quality that enchanted the world, McKenzie says.
“There’s just something about her that captured the world’s hearts and imaginations. It’s like a freshness and a kindness, I think, that really spoke to people.”
McKenzie, the daughter of acting coach Miranda Harcourt and writer Stuart McKenzie, has herself been a star on the rise, with leading roles in the films including Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho, Eileen, Joy and The Testament of Ann Lee. She recently starred in historical satire Fackham Hall.
She went deep into Hepburn’s life researching the role, she says.
“There was the voice that I worked on a lot, because she had a very particular way of speaking. She was born in Belgium, but she spent a lot of time in a town called Arnhem, just outside of Amsterdam.
“And she also spent a lot of time at boarding school in London. And then she started working in America. So there was a kind of American influence on her accent.”
Her portrayal of the actor, who died in 1993, went beyond impersonation, says McKenzie, who has recently returned to New Zealand after being based in London.
“Just to emanate her energy. I think the costume and the hair and makeup really helped a lot to make me look like Audrey, but I didn’t want it to feel like I was doing an impression of Audrey.”
McKenzie attempted to tune into Hepburn’s spirit, she says.
“And what I discovered about her, what I think [was] the key to playing Audrey, was just realising that she really wanted to be loved. That was something that I kept coming back to.”
The film does not yet have a release date.