Robyn Nevin was born 25 September 1942, in Melbourne, to william George Nevin and Josephine Pauline Casey. She was educated at Genazzano Convent until the age of 11, when she moved with her family moved to Hobart, Tasmania, and was enrolled at the Fahan School, a non-denominational school for girls. While there, she played the lead in the school's production of Snow White at the Theatre Royal. Her parents were conservative and conventional, her father the managing Director of Dunlop Australia, her mother a housewife, so to enter the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) at the age of 16 in the very first intake in 1959 was a brave step, in which she was fully supported by her parents.