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X patriate Anna Paquin
Michele Manelis
It's Wednesday in Los Angeles and Anna Paquin has turned up
to her interview with a minder. Only this isn't the unusual
PR flack, but a dog - a 13-week old Staffordshire terrier
named DeeDee.
At the moment, the pup goes with Paquin everywhere. It's just
the thing if you look a little young - Paquin turned 20 last
year - to get into New York nightclubs.
"Honestly, if you're trying to get past a bouncer, distract
them with how cute your puppy is and they won't ask any questions."
The reason for the chat is ostensibly X-Men 2, in which Paquin
returns in the role of Rogue after the hit 2000 first film
from the superhero comic series.
But this year also marks the 10th anniversary of The Piano,
Jane Campion's movie which won Paquin a best supporting actress
Oscar for her performance as a 9-year-old.
Nine years on from that night in 1994, when the little girl in
the beret gulped down her surprise to deliver an assured thank-you
speech, was she old enough to appreciate the moment?
"No, not really. Not when you'd never even heard of them. I lived
in New Zealand. I never watched television. My parents were kind
of very into music lessons and no TV. We were a lentils-and-no-sugar
household. I went to a Rudolf Steiner school until I was eight or
nine. I was very very sheltered, so it was all a huge [expletive]
shock to me."
And no, it didn't screw her up, she says, thanks to a family
that deliberately kept her out of the media spotlight while
allowing her film career to develop alongside her education.
"I have that kind of family that were like, 'Ok you can do
this, so long as it's a positive thing. So long as no one's
trying to turn you into a little media puppet and you get
to develop at your own speed emotionally'.
"They wouldn't have let me become some sort of arrogant movie
brat. They wouldn't have let me become one of those nightmare
stories."
These days, Paquin has become an actress with a taste for
sometimes risque supporting roles (Hurly Burly and
Spike Lee's forthcoming 25th Hour) and an off-kilter
screen presence.
Having lucked into a film career as a 9-year-old, Paquin
now says that while she was sometimes ambivalent about
continuing acting as she was growing up, she's decided
this is what she wants to do.
"I'm just kind of relieved to say that it did work out,
and I do want to be an actor. And I have absolutely no
idea why. I really don't. Except that I guess I've
somehow luckily escaped the pitfalls that are there."
These days when she's not in front of the cameras,
Paquin divides her time between studies at New York's
Columbia University, where she is still to decide on a
major and has three or four years before graduating,
spending time with her unnamed (and non-actor) boyfriend,
and plenty of phone time with her family who are now
stretched from New Zealand to San Francisco to Canada.
For the record, the statuette is kept in her closet in
her New York apartment where she says it is quite safe.
"You'd have to get past the security guys at the door
of my building, wade through the mess, and get past
my puppy. And then I could bludgeon someone to death
with it because the thing weighs 10 pounds."
Now, Paquin has something arguably more valuable than
an Oscar - a blockbuster franchise.
In the first X-film Paquin's Rogue was a troubled teen
trying to cope with her mutant gifts - she's lethal to
the touch. In part 2 she's coping with that and a spot
of inter-mutant romance with newcomer "Iceman".
"I think her power really sucks," she laughs. "It's
lame. The effect doesn't really blow shit up or
anything, but in terms of like her emotional life,
the fact that her power is so restricting of the ways
she can relate to people that she's close with, that
gives you a lot as an actress to help you figure out.
And then getting to see how she does relate to someone
who is trying to be her boyfriend, that was a really
cool thing for me to do. Because in a big movie like
this, we only get so many opportunities to only do acting."
While there are reports of ructions on set between star
Halle Berry and director Bryan Singer, Paquin says
personally she found the making of the second film easier.
During the first one she was juggling the workload of her
last year of high school complete with exams and applications
to university with shooting the film.
Also, there was the pressure of wondering if the film
would turn out any good - or get flayed alive by faithful
fans of the comicbook and ignored by everyone else. It
worked out nicely, and Paquin reckons the second instalment
ups the ante.
"It's cooler, it's tighter and more exciting. There's more
confidence and panache in how it's executed because they
know the world that the comicbook fans have already accepted,
and they're not going to crucify us for making a mess of
their comicbook, and other people who are not comicbook
fans have enjoyed the movie.
"I'm not the damsel in distress this time. I got to
ditch those big, heavy handcuffs which were the bane
of my existence for the last six months on the movie."
But Paquin has her fans who aren't just X-Men
nerds. As she's found out in the most unlikely places.
"I think one of the lucky things is that I've had a very
diverse range of movies and characters. So I appeal to
a very diverse bunch of people, so it completely depends.
I get recognised for all sorts of things. I'm like, 'I
didn't think anyone even saw that movie!' It's very
flattering.
"We went to a professional wrestling event in Vancouver
where we were shooting, and it was hilarious - we went
backstage and met all of these people and one of them
is like the Beast or something and he's like 350 pounds,
huge and hairy, and he was speaking in mono-syllables
in the ring. He came up to me and shook my hand and
said, 'I loved you in The Piano'."
And there's a little homesickness in the answer to
the inevitable question about what superpower would
she choose?
"Teleportation. Whatever is happening with the airlines
that don't fly to New Zealand? It's really pissing me
off because I couldn't get home for Christmas. And it
would be so nice to think, 'I miss my mother' [clicks
fingers] and get to go see my friends."
* X-Men 2 opens on April 30.
The New Zealand Herald, April 20, 2003
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