2000s: Australian television debut Mitchell first began acting by performing in school plays and local theatre productions. She was discovered by talent agencies and got her big break at age 12, when she was cast as Brittany Flune in the Australian children's television series
Mortified.
Mortified ended after two seasons and a total of 26 episodes, which ran from 30 June 2006 to 11 April 2007. Due to her success on
Mortified, she also starred in the Australian TV series
Trapped and its sequel series
Castaway as the character Natasha Hamilton. She was also in the TV series
K-9, a spin-off of the popular British TV series
Doctor Who which focuses on the robot dog
K9.
2010s: Breakthrough and American television When Mitchell was 18 years old, she moved to
Los Angeles, where she landed a role as recurring character Shaylee Michaels in the
Disney Channel TV series
Jessie. She then made her film debut by starring as the main character McKenzie "Mack" in the Disney Channel original movie
Teen Beach Movie and reprised her role in
Teen Beach 2. From 2013 to 2018, she starred in the
ABC Family later
Freeform drama series
The Fosters as Callie Jacob, who would later change names to Callie Adams Foster. During the show's fifth and last season, it was announced that Mitchell and
Cierra Ramirez would be spun off into their own series, titled
Good Trouble, which premiered in January 2019. She received critical acclaim for her performance in the series, with Brad Newsome of
The Sydney Morning Herald calling her "a standout", writing "Young Australian Maia Mitchell is terrific again in this sequel series to
The Fosters [...] The hugely likeable Mitchell continues to grow as a perceptive, multi-faceted actor whose best work is yet to come." Mitchell was a main cast member until
the second episode of the fourth season, when she chose to return to her native Australia during the
2022 Australian flood crisis, before later returning with guest roles in the fifth season. Mitchell and Ramirez also served as
executive producers of
Good Trouble. Also in 2018, she collaborated with
Rudy Mancuso for the song "Magic".
2020s: Return from Australia Mitchell returned to Los Angeles in 2023 to rejoin
Good Trouble in
its fifth season. That year, she also played the leading role of Lady Belle Fox in
The Artful Dodger (2023), an eight-episode miniseries made for
Disney+. The show follows Jack "Artful Dodger" Dawkins years after the events of Charles Dickens' novel,
Oliver Twist (1838). On 21 November 2024, it was announced that the series had been renewed for a second series and Mitchell would return to play Lady Belle Fox. In 2024, she finished
Good Trouble after five seasons. Since the
2022 Australian flood crisis, she has been an advocate for
climate change and
environmental welfare. ==Personal life==