Do we like Thomasin McKenzie?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Clean on harm, a real charity commitment and no scandals found, but she says little publicly on the big issues, so it stops short of the top marks.
Thomasin McKenzie grew up in Wellington in an acting family: her mother and grandmother are actors and her father is a filmmaker. She started working as a child, with her first paid role at nine, and has said she once planned to be a zookeeper or vet. She has also said she took on lots of work partly to prove she wasn't coasting on the family name.
Her big break came at 13 playing Louise Nicholas in the NZ telefeature Consent. Then came Leave No Trace in 2018, Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho and the BBC's Life After Life. She says she's a private person who dislikes overexposure, which explains why the gossip file on her is basically empty.
On the scandal front, we went looking and came up dry. Searches turned up no court cases, no lawsuits and no allegations from any established outlet. The only junk was content-farm spam, which we ignored. That is honestly the whole list.
On the harm check, nothing she has said or done points the wrong way. We found no culture-war posts, no conspiracy talk and no run of films with people who push that stuff. Her recent work is period drama, comedy and horror: Fackham Hall, The Testament of Ann Lee, The Uprising and Dinner with Audrey, where she plays Audrey Hepburn. The catch is that she hardly talks politics, so a pass here means we found no harm, not that we found a campaigner.
The recent news is The Uprising. She talked about her character Alyce as someone who was there in the rebellion, saying “She was always there, actively listening and wanting to be part of the change.” The film put women's part in history up front, which is a decent way to spend a big role.
The real good stuff is her work as a New Zealand ambassador for So They Can, a charity that supports education in Kenya and Tanzania. She sponsors a child, joined a fundraiser and visited Kenya in 2023. She said “Success has given me great privilege and influence” and that she would be remiss not to use it for good.