From You Mag:
Since her Oscar-winning performance in The Piano at the age of 11, Anna Paquin has worked hard and kept her head down. So how is the reluctant A-lister coping with the phenomenal success of cult vampire series True Blood?
Anna Paquin arrives at Gjelina’s, her favourite LA restaurant, on a pale pink pushbike, asks for her usual lemonade, smiles and starts to chatter. Not nervous, over-your-head chatter, but wry, offbeat, barbed wit.
The actress, who for many will for ever be the elemental child Flora in Jane Campion’s 1993 film The Piano, is laughing about the superhero doll made after her. ‘There’s a Rogue [her character in X-Men] action figure at Toys ’R’ Us! You have to get a kick out of that. I’m nonbiodegradable.’
Chattiness ‘is what people least expect of me, I know,’ says Anna. ‘At one point, in my early 20s, I was so shy that people were surprised I actually spoke.’ Since winning an Oscar at only 11 for The Piano, Anna, now 26, has had a consistent and acclaimed career – from Zeffirelli’s Jane Eyre, via Almost Famous, to Spike Lee’s 25th Hour, The Squid and the Whale, and as Rogue (the superheroine whose kiss kills) in the X-Men franchise – but has avoided the public eye. She rarely gives interviews and even more rarely talks about her private life. Her reputation is, she confesses, ‘Being incredibly serious about my work.’
Her head-down, work-hard approach has paid off with industry respect, no tabloid tittle-tattle and a recent Best Actress win at the Golden Globes for True Blood, the steamy vampire comedy-drama TV series that is now airing on the FX channel and will be shown on Channel 4 in October.
Since it first screened in the US last autumn, the show has become HBO’s third highest-rated series after The Sopranos and Sex and the City, and Anna is now constantly recognised and papped.
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