Mirren Lee

Mirren has entered a new phase of her freelance life, having decided that it’s time to put all her knowledge for actors about working in the Industry into a book, and her Voice/Dialect/Accent knowledge into a DVD and book. Since creativity is often stimulated by a change of scenery, she moved back to Melbourne from Sydney this year, to the seaside village of Cowes on Phillip Island. There she is writing the above mentioned projects, as well as many others she has had waiting for her attention for many years! However, she continues to coach by splitting her time between Sydney (in Randwick) and Melbourne (in the city, not in Cowes), going back and forth every 8 weeks or so, as well as increasing her contact with clients via Skype/phone.

This new phase of creativity is in its beginning stages, and will include restarting the eZine she used to send out monthly, as well as some upcoming group seminars/workshops.  There are a lot of exciting new projects Mirren will be introducing over the next few months, which is why she encourages everyone to join the eZine subscriber list in order to get first notification of everything that will be happening.

An overview of her background starts with Mirren being born in Los Angeles to an Australian mother and an American father – the typical war bride situation – migrating to Sydney in 1969 when her mother decided to take her 7 children back home. Mirren trained as an actress her whole life, taking her first Method classes when she was nine years old. By the time she arrived in Australia, she was ready to look for professional work, ending up on the ground breaking (if slightly melodramatic!) TV series “No. 96″, playing the ongoing role of Sharon, a biker’s girlfriend constantly up to no good.  After a few more TV roles, Mirren felt she needed further on screen training, which was not available in Australia, and returned to L.A. (with her young son) in the mid 70s. She trained and worked there for awhile, moving onto England to take classes at The Actor’s Centre.  She started doing voice-overs in London, which started her passion for this area of work.

Back in Australia, Mirren began teaching acting classes in both Sydney and Melbourne, running a theater company, and continuing her own acting career. Living in Adelaide in the mid 80s, she developed an intense interest in voice work and studied privately for 3 years, while running classes, including at the University of Adelaide.  She brought Theater Games to Australia and taught in secondary schools to the many teachers who had the Theatre Games File by Viola Spolin on their shelves, but didn’t know what to do with them.  She then branched out into voice coaching, with accent/dialect work added to the mix. She returned to Melbourne in 1989 and started The Playhouse Group, a multi strand company that included classes, a Theatre-in-Education group, in-school workshops, the theatre-in-residence at The Polly Woodside sailing ship/museum, and ongoing theatrical productions for both children and adults, as well as an actor’s agency that ran for 5 years.  To this day, she has been the mentor of 5 new actor’s agencies, in both Sydney and Melbourne, helping them get started through her knowledge and help.  She has also done extensive freelance casting.

As an actress, it was the opening of her own agency, and the freelance casting she did as well, that opened Mirren’s eyes to all the knowledge that actors don’t get taught, and SHOULD, if they are to run their careers successfully. She also believes she might be the only person in Australia with her unique background and skill set of actor’s agent, casting director, actress, writer, director, producer and coach.  It has given her knowledge across the board for being in the entertainment Industry.

In the late 90s, after also teaching at various TAFEs in Melbourne, Mirren felt she was experiencing creative burnout, and so after a role on “Neighbours” as Pat Horrocks, she decided to move to Sydney at the end of 2000 in order to tap into the greater variety of work available with the American productions, both as an actress and a coach.  She expanded her teaching into the WEA, Sydney Community College, Manly Warringah College, and City Ed at St. Andrews, plus several international colleges (this involved her corporate work in business subjects), and as guest lecturer for a Work for the Dole program teaching participants how to research and film a documentary.

Eventually, Mirren opened her own studio in Sydney and focused on teaching there while also coaching privately.  She added production coaching to her slate of projects as well, and found that her favorite area to coach in is TVCs (television commercials) because they suit her hyperactive personality by working to a faster schedule than TV shows or movies.  She likes to teach actors short cuts and tips that will get instant results.  She has worked for top directors in many American and Australian jobs, and particularly enjoys working in New Zealand on projects (see Dialect Coaching page for more details).

Please check out the “Coaching” page for more information on what Mirren can help you with, how she coaches, and her schedule information for making a booking.