Harry Potter star Miriam Margolyes says Australia is ‘brutal’ and ‘greedy

She once said Australia had an ‘optimism’ and ‘vitality’ not seen in her native England, but Miriam Margolyes seems to have changed her tune in the seven years since becoming a naturalised Aussie citizen.

The 78-year-old actress, who is best known for playing Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter film series, said on Monday she was horrified by the ‘brutality’ and ‘greed’ of her adopted home country while filming ABC documentary series Almost Australian.

She travelled from coast to coast learning about the contrasts within our nation, and came to the realisation Australia was ‘much more complicated’ than she had first thought when she arrived in the 1980s.

‘We think we know what it’s like, but we don’t. It’s quite complicated. It’s layered. Lots of things happen. I do think I was right that it’s harsher than it was. Maybe that’s true in the world,’ she told TV Tonight. 

‘There’s a there’s a harshness about it, which I didn’t expect.’ 

Margolyes lives in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales with her longtime partner, Heather Sutherland, a retired Australian professor of Indonesian studies.

She said the most confronting part of the documentary was having to visit Surfers Paradise, a highly developed stretch of coastline on Queensland’s Gold Coast popular with holidaymakers.

‘There is a brutality there and a greed in Australia, which I don’t like,’ she said.

‘You know, the developers. Those horrible structures along the coast, that people should be ashamed of living in. Surfers Paradise, it’s disgusting. I think that actually shocked me because I don’t go there. It’s not my world and I don’t want to go there.’

The BAFTA-winning actress became a citizen in January 2013 after years of dividing her time between London and Australia.

‘I don’t like class distinction and there is far too much of that in England,’ she said after her citizenship ceremony.

‘There’s an energy here – an optimism, a vitality. I think England doesn’t have that any more. There’s an irony and not accepting bulls**t and I love that, that straight-talking stuff.’