Heather Mitchell AM
Heather Mitchell, 2023
Education	National Institute of Dramatic Art (BFA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1981–present
Website	heathermitchell.com.au

Heather Lee Mitchell AM is an Australian actress, who has appeared in Australian stage, television, and film productions. She is best known for her leading role in the 1990s television show Spellbinder. More recently, she appeared as Anita in the series Love Me, and as Margaux in the Paramount Plus series Fake. She has a role in the upcoming miniseries The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

Mitchell is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and has performed on stage since 1975, including collaborations with dance company Force Majeure. In 2022, she played U.S. justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the play RBG: Of Many, One, for Sydney Theatre Company.

Heather Lee Mitchell^{[citation needed]} attended Camden High School in Camden, New South Wales, between 1971 and 1976, and was school captain in her final year. She took the leading role of Judith Bliss in the 1976 school production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever.^{[citation needed]}

Mitchell is well known internationally for her performance as Ashka in the Australian/Polish co-productions of Spellbinder (1995), and Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord (1997). The series was a popular children's fantasy program, first broadcast in 1995.^{[citation needed]}

Other television productions she has appeared in include: the miniseries Bodyline (1984), Land of Hope (1986), Embassy (1992) and A Country Practice. In 1998, she starred in the miniseries drama The Day of the Roses, in which she played a victim of the 1977 Granville rail disaster.^{[citation needed]} She has also appeared in episodes of Five Mile Creek (1984), Rake (2010), Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (2013), and Ms Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries (2019).^{[citation needed]} In 2021, she played Birdie in The Unusual Suspects.^{[citation needed]}

In 2024, Mitchell was named as one of the cast for the miniseries The Narrow Road to the Deep North,^[1], and she played Margaux in the Paramount Plus series Fake.^[2]

Mitchell is a foundation director and board member of the Sydney Theatre Company (STC).^[3] She first appeared at the STC in 1981, performing scenes of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 with Andrew Tighe for a workshop.^[4]

She has since appeared in dozens of productions for several Australian theatre companies, and has contributed to Terence Crawford's 2005 book Trade Secrets: Australian Actors and Their Craft.^[5][6]

Never Did Me Any Harm (Sydney Festival, January 2012), exploring parenting, was a joint production between STC and dance company Force Majeure. It starred Mitchell, Marta Dusseldorp, and Vincent Crowley, with a solo dance performed by dancer Sarah-Jayne Howard.^[7][8]

Mitchell co-wrote the script of Force Majeure's You Animal, You with artistic director Danielle Micich, which explored the sense of smell. She also starred in the performance, which premiered at the Sydney Festival in January 2018.^[9]

In 2022, it was announced that Mitchell would play the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the theatre production RBG: Of Many, One.^[10] In 2024, Mitchell again played Ginsburg for the 2024 Black Swan State Theatre Company season.^[11] Critics called Mitchell's performance as Ginsburg as a "tour de force".^[12] Mitchell would again reprise Ginsburg for the 2025 Sydney Theatre Company season.^[13]

Mitchell's stage performances include:^[14]

• Heather Mitchell (2023) Everything and Nothing ISBN 9781761067303

Mitchell met cinematographer Martin McGrath on a film set in Broken Hill in 1989. They were engaged in the following year and married in February 1992.^[22] The couple have two adult children and as of 2021^[update] reside in Sydney.^[22]

Mitchell was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2020 Australia Day Honours for "significant service to the performing arts, and to the community."^[23]

• Official website
• Heather Mitchell at IMDb
• "Heather Mitchell".
• "Heather Mitchell" by Melanie Tait, One Plus One, 3 October 2019, ABC News