The private world of our golden girl
Kiwi actress Anna Paquin tells James Croot that her memory of receiving her Academy Award now feels ‘like looking at a photo album of when you were little’.
Twenty five years after her big night at the Oscars, Anna Paquin says the experience feels more like an anecdote, than something she has personal memories of. The young New Zealand actress captured the world’s attention and hearts with a breathless, near wordless acceptance speech when she won the award for best supporting actress at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1994, when she was just 11 years old.
Honoured for her performance as Flora in Jane Campion’s The Piano, her first screen role, the then Wellington resident became the second youngest actor ever to receive the accolade.
Tatum O’Neal won for Paper Moon in 1974, when she was 10.
Reflecting on the moment that she suddenly achieved global fame, the now 36-year-old mother of 6-year-old-twins Poppy and Charlie also compares it to ‘‘looking at a photo album of when you were little’’.
‘‘I have that experience of thinking, ‘do I remember that birthday, or have I just looked at that picture enough times?’’’
With her parents being very protective of her during her formative years, the media had a hard time getting her perspective on the whirlwind around the events at the time.
Looking back, Paquin understands what they were trying to do.
‘‘They wanted to make sure I was taken care of, had my education,’’ the former Hutt Intermediate schoolgirl recently told the Tribune News Service. ‘‘It worked out.
‘‘I think, from my parents’ perspective, [they wondered] is shutting this door forever really the right thing to do, when clearly it’s something that our child has an ability in and has this opportunity? . . . Do we just take it very slowly and carefully or do we shut it down completely?
‘‘I think the consensus was to allow it as long as it didn’t seem to be doing any harm – until it became something that was very much driven by me. And then, good luck trying to shut it down. I was 15 or 16.’’
So while admitting that she does have a lot of memories around ‘‘that incident, that event, it doesn’t really figure that much into my daily life’’.
For the moment, daily life not only includes raising her children with fellow actor Stephen Moyer who she met on the set of the long-running TV series True Blood, but promoting her latest entertainment baby – British black comedy Flack, which she is also an executive producer on.
Paquin plays Robin, a publicist to the stars who also has major problems of her own, in the six-part series, which has just launched on TVNZ OnDemand.
Telling Stuff that it is just so rare to find material ‘‘that’s exciting to read’’ these days, Paquin says she was drawn to the ‘‘incredibly smart, sharp, funny, deeply dark, and emotionally poignant’’ writing.
‘‘I was like, ‘oh God, this is fantastic because I really want to say these words out loud’. That sort of thing is so underrated sometimes in my line of work, so it’s a real joy when you come across it. Everything else is gravy if you start with material that excites you – it’s pretty hard to get it too wrong.’’
When asked if her character is based on any particular publicists she has encountered, Paquin politely demurs before revealing that she has actually had the same person representing her interests since she was 13.
‘‘She’s wonderful. I’m naturally quite
‘I was like, ‘oh God, [Flack] is fantastic because I really want to say these words out loud’. That sort of thing is so underrated sometimes in my line of work.’ ANNA PAQUIN