Josephine Mitchell

Josephine Mitchell (born 21 May 1965) sometimes billed credited as Jo Mitchell is an Australian actress and comedian, with a lengthy career in television soap operas. Mitchell is best known for her role in the television series A Country Practice as schoolgirl Jo Loveday (later Langley), from 1985 until leaving the show in 1989.

In 1990 she played Jane Holland in Home and Away, and has appeared in many of Australia's most popular series including, E Street (as designer and mother Penny O'Brien), Neighbours (as Katerina, a wheelchair user) and on All Saints as a one episode guest, playing a protective mother who mutilated her husband after she found he had molested their daughter.

Both of Mitchell's parents were heavily involved in theatre and she has had an extensive career in her own right in theatre as well as many television and film roles. She started her own theatre company, Strut Theatre, with other actors to promote women's roles. Strut worked out of Wharf 2 at the Sydney Theatre Company in the early nineties. She produced two plays, Pam Gems and Dusa, Fish, Stas and Vi, as well as a commissioned play by Australian playwright, Justin Fleming called Conversation Peace. She then moved to Melbourne to appear in the National tour of the musical Hello Dolly, produced by John Frost.

She lived in Melbourne for several years, appearing regularly on Bert Newton's light entertainment show Good Morning Australia. In 2010, she returned to the small screen in Home And Away (this time as a different character) to play the role of Jill Carpenter, the dysfunctional alcoholic mother of a son Romeo, played by Luke Mitchell.

Jo Mitchell is married to Australian director and producer Chris Martin-Jones and they have two daughters. The pair met when Martin-Jones was a director on A Country Practice in 1989. His other credits include McLeod's Daughters, Packed to the Rafters, Spartacus, Legend of the Seeker, and A Place to Call Home.

She has a double degree from Sydney University, in Medieval and Religious Studies. She is currently focusing on her work behind the camera as writer, having finished a feature-length movie titled The Cult and the tele-movie Aren't U Spesh!.