Anna Paquin: Oscar's Littlte Girl Grows Up - Interview

Interview, Jan-April, 2001 by Diane Lane

Surprise! The nine-year-old New Zealand girl we first saw an the silver screen in The Piano (1993)--and met again when she claimed an Oscar for her role--has grown up. With more than ten movies to her name, including Amistad (1997), Hurlyburly (1998), She's All That (1999), X-Men, and Almost Famous, Paquin, now eighteen years old, is matriculating at New York's Columbia University and trying out dorm life. This month, she stars with Sean Cannery, F. Murray Abraham, and newcomer Rob Brown in the new Gus Van Sant movie, Finding Forrester. Recently Diane Lane, who played Paquin's young mother in A Walk on the Moon (1999), interviewed her former co-star. The two have a lot in common. Lane, a former child star herself, has recently enrolled at U.C.L.A., where she attends classes when not taking care of her young daughter.

DIANE LANE: Being a full-time student now, do you find that your fame is something that colors your world in a positive way or in a negative way?

ANNA PAQUIN: I love what I do, so there really isn't any way I could look at my circumstances and say, "I have such a rotten life." I get paid to do the thing I love most, and maybe that makes blending into the crowd impossible sometimes, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

DL: Then why the decision to pursue college?

AP: I think acting is great and I really love it, but I want to see more of the world. I want to learn about things that I'm interested in and have different life experiences. One of the potential disadvantages to spending most of your childhood working is that you don't really see much else.

DL: What are you planning on majoring in?

AP: Probably Comparative Lit, English and French. I'm taking French and Italian right now, and I'm also taking a Literature Humanities class, which is basically our "great books" course. We're reading Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Plato, Thucydides, Herodotus, all that stuff. It's really great. I'm actually genuinely interested in the things I'm learning, for once.

DL: What's the college culture like? Do you feel like there's a lot of drug use going on with kids your age today, or an inordinate amount of drinking?

AP: I don't know. Obviously a big part of being in college is having fun, but I don't really know what other people are doing when they're out partying. It's not my thing but people are gonna do what they're gonna do.

DL: Do you have a roommate?

AP: Yeah. I have a roommate I love--she's the perfect perfect roommate, and I hope she reads this [laughs]. I also have two suitemates. Basically there are two separate rooms. The four of us share one bathroom.

DL: Do you have a schedule of bathroom and shower use?

AP: No. I'm pretty much always the first one up, because my classes seem to be the earliest. I don't know how that happened, seeing as I'm really not a morning person. I love living in a dorm, though. I can see how if you weren't someone who likes being with a lot of people all the time that it could get a little old. But I really like being with people my own age.

DL: How many siblings do you have?

AP: I have two. I shared a room with my sister for a really long time, so I'm perfectly capable of cohabiting with people, without it being painful for either party--hopefully.

DL: It's great being part of a community, the body of the school.

AP: Yeah. You know everyone loves to complain about the dining hall and the people being noisy next door, the elevators being really slow, whatever, but I pretty much love all the little things about school, even the stuff that I complain about. I wouldn't want to change any of it, because I think it's just all part of the experience.

DL: What do you imagine you would do with your life if you weren't an actress?

AP: Ooh. I have absolutely no idea. I'd probably still be in New Zealand. I really love photography ...

DL: I love New Zealand, but I've never been.

AP: [laughs] A lot of people love New Zealand who have never been, and a lot of people love New Zealand who have been, so it's a very lovable place, even long distance.

DL: Let me ask you about your new film [Finding Forrester]. You just worked with Sean Connery, right?

AP: Well, sort of. He was in the film, but we had maybe half a scene together--we're both in the same room, and that's about it. [both laugh] It was a little disappointing, but I was like, "Wow. I'm in the same film as Sean Connery!"

DL: Well, what about Rob Brown [Paquin's love interest in the film, featured on page 28 of this issue]?

AP: Rob is absolutely great. He's a very talented guy. I had so much fun working with him.

DL: I understand Rob had never acted before.

AP: Nope.

DL: What was that like for you?

AP: It's kind of nice when someone doesn't really have any preconceptions about what they're doing.

DL: Tell me about your character in the film. She has an interracial love affair, right?

AP: Yeah. I play a really overprivileged, Upper East Side of Manhattan private school girl whose daddy buys her anything she could ever desire. But at the same time she doesn't really buy into the entire system, if you know what I mean. She doesn't mind the benefits of it, but she isn't going to buy into it, either. She likes this guy, and she doesn't care that he's black, and she's just secure enough in her own position that she can be sort of assertive about that.