There was a moment, while shooting The Surfer, that Miranda Tapsell started to think that maybe Nicolas Cage didn’t like her.
In the movie, Hollywood star Nic plays a man returning to the beach where he spent his childhood and finding local surfers don’t want him there. Miranda plays a friendly photographer he meets in the beach’s carpark.
“I’m used to Australian actors having a chat with you while the cameras are being moved and all that sort of stuff,” Miranda tells TV WEEK. “Americans are so different.
“I had to go over to Rob Connolly, who helped produce the film, and I said to him, ‘Am I doing something wrong? Does he hate me?’ And he’s like, ‘No, no, no. Remember, he’s at quite a low point in the story, so he’s sort of “in it”.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay!’”
Not long after that, Nic did start talking to Miranda.
“The cameras were moving and I was like, ‘Okay, so what’s happening now? Can someone tell me?’” Miranda remembers. “And he came up to me, nudged me, gave me a little wink, and he’s like, ‘So basically, I’m gonna take that sign over there, and I’m gonna hit that guy with it, and I’m gonna kick some ass.’ And I was like, ‘Yes! Yes! I’m in a blockbuster with Nic Cage!’”
For Miranda, who spent much of her childhood in Kakadu National Park, the idea of making a movie about surfing was appealing.
“My dad grew up surfing and then he moved to the Northern Territory where there’s crocodiles, so…” she laughs. “So I’m not really aware of surf culture. I really wanted a window into that world.”
The 37-year-old actress now lives in Sydney with her writer husband James Colley and their daughter Grace. She shot The Surfer at Yallingup Beach in Western Australia in late 2023, when Grace was almost two.
“I was really lucky that my parents and my husband and my baby got to come over,” she says. “What’s so wonderful about having my parents around is that I can take on these big projects and I don’t necessarily feel held back because if I can’t give my daughter the stability she needs in her routine, then my parents are there.”
The Surfer is not a movie for children, but Miranda has certainly worked on plenty of child-friendly shows in her career, having appeared on Play School, and voiced roles in Bluey, Little J & Big Cuz and Kangaroo Beach. That’s a lot of great TV for Grace to watch – if she ever wants to.
“I showed her a Play School episode I was on,” Miranda remembers. “She was like, ‘Is it over yet?’ She’s a huge Spider-Man girl. Loves Minions.”
Miranda also tried playing Grace a scene from the 2012 movie The Sapphires, where she starred alongside Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy and Shari Sebbens.
“I just showed her the final scene where the four girls are singing ‘Sugar pie, honey bunch’ in the iconic blue sequins, and she just kept running in and out of the lounge room. When it was over, she was like, ‘Yeah! Turn it off now.’
“It’s so funny how people say having children is something for the parents’ ego, but it is truly such a humbling experience. You are really put in your place by your children!”
Miranda, whose second baby is due in August, has recently been working on the series Top End Bub, which will air on Prime Video this year. She’s the star, co-creator and executive producer, and says it’s “very empowering” to have so much control. At the same time, she says it’s “wonderful” to come into something like The Surfer and just act.
For that acting to be opposite someone she’s been a fan of since she watched Con Air and Gone In 60 Seconds as a teenager, it’s even better.
“It was just such an amazing experience,” she says. “I’m going to treasure it for the rest of my life.”
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