Anna Paquin

Anna Paquin
Paquin at the San Diego Comic-Con International, July 2012
Born	Anna Helene Paquin (1982-07-24) 24 July 1982 (age 30) Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1993–present
Spouse(s)	Stephen Moyer (m. 2010) «start: (2010)»"Marriage: Stephen Moyer to Anna Paquin" Location: (linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Paquin)
Children	2

Anna Helene Paquin (/ˈpækwɪn/; born 24 July 1982) is a Canadian-born New Zealand film, television and theatre actress. Paquin's first critically successful film was The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in 1994 at the age of 11 – the second youngest winner in history.^[1] She later appeared in a number of successful films including Fly Away Home, She's All That, Almost Famous and the X-Men franchise.

Paquin is well known for her role as Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood, for which she won a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Drama in 2008.

[edit] Early life

Paquin was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the daughter of Mary Paquin (née Brophy), an English teacher and native of Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a high school physical education teacher from Canada. Paquin has two older siblings: a brother, Andrew, a director, born in 1977, and a sister, Katya, born in 1980,^[2][3] who is the partner of the Green Party of New Zealand co-leader Russel Norman.^[4] Paquin's family moved to New Zealand when she was four. She attended the Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School until she was eight or nine.^[5] Her musical childhood hobbies in New Zealand included playing the viola, cello and piano. She also participated in gymnastics, ballet, swimming and downhill skiing, though she did not have any hobbies related to acting.^[6][7]

While in New Zealand, Paquin attended Hutt Intermediate School from 1994–95. Having begun her secondary education in Wellington at Wellington Girls' College, she completed her high school diploma at Windward School in Los Angeles, after moving to the US with her mother following her parents' divorce in 1995.^[8] She graduated from Windward School in June 2000 and completed the school's community service requirement by working in a soup kitchen and at a special education centre. She studied at Columbia University for one year, but has since been on a leave of absence to continue her acting career.

[edit] Career

[edit] Child actress

It was in New Zealand in 1991 that Paquin became an actress by chance. Director Jane Campion was looking for a little girl to play a key role in The Piano, set to film in New Zealand, and a newspaper advertisement was run announcing an open audition. Paquin's sister read the ad and went to try out with a friend; Paquin herself tagged along because she had nothing better to do. When Campion met Paquin—whose only acting experience had been as a skunk in a school play—she was very impressed with the nine-year-old's performance of the monologue about Flora's father, and she was chosen from among the 5000 candidates.^[7]

When The Piano was released in 1993 it was lauded by critics, won prizes at a number of film festivals, and eventually became a popular film among a wide audience. Paquin's debut performance in the film earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the age of eleven, making her the second-youngest Oscar winner in history after Tatum O'Neal.^[7] The Piano was made as a small independent film and wasn't expected to be widely known, and Paquin and her family did not plan to continue in the acting circles.^[6] However, she was invited to the William Morris Agency, and she kept receiving offers for new roles. She systematically refused them, but she did appear in three commercials for the phone company MCI (now Verizon) in 1994.^[9] She later made a series of television commercials for Manitoba Telecom Systems in her birth city of Winnipeg.^[10] She also appeared as a voice in an audio book entitled The Magnificent Nose in 1994.

In 1996, she appeared in two films. The first role was as young Jane in Jane Eyre. The other was a lead part in Fly Away Home playing a young girl who, after her mother dies, moves in with her father and finds solace in taking care of orphaned goslings.^[11]

As a teenager, she had roles in films including A Walk on the Moon, Amistad, Hurlyburly, She's All That and Almost Famous.

[edit] X-Men and beyond

Paquin at 25th Annual Paley Television Festival, April 2009

Paquin returned to worldwide prominence with her role as the mutant superheroine Rogue in the Marvel Comics movie X-Men in 2000,^[1] its sequel X2 in 2003, and its third instalment, X-Men: The Last Stand, in 2006.

Between 2006 and 2007, she starred in, as well as executive-produced Blue State. The film is made by Paquin Films, a production company formed by both her and her brother, Andrew Paquin.^[12] In November 2006, she completed the film Margaret, which was released in 2011. She played Elaine Goodale in HBO's made-for-TV film Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, based on Dee Brown's best-seller.

Paquin was cast as waitress Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood in 2008, her first role in a TV series. The show is based on The Southern Vampire Mysteries series of novels by Charlaine Harris, set in the fictional town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. While working on True Blood, she started dating co-star Stephen Moyer and later married him in 2010.

In 2009, Paquin played Irena Sendler, a Polish woman hailed as a heroine of the Holocaust, in The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, a CBS TV film biographical film based on the book Mother of the Children of the Holocaust: The Irena Sendler Story, by Anna Mieszkowska. The film was made in Latvia, and was a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation for the network.^[13]

In 2010, Paquin's film The Romantics, a romantic comedy with Josh Duhamel and Katie Holmes, was released in the US at selected cinemas in September. She played a cameo role in Scream 4, alongside Kristen Bell in 2011.^[14] She also played the voice of Kristin on an episode of Phineas and Ferb.

Upcoming projects for her in 2012 included Straight A's, co-starring Ryan Phillippe, and Free Ride with Cam Gigandet. Also Black Wings Has My Angel, alongside Tom Hiddleston, set to start shooting in autumn 2012, and released in 2013. Paquin will reprise her role as Rogue in the upcoming film X-Men: Days of Future Past.

[edit] Personal life

Paquin with husband and True Blood costar Stephen Moyer, 2009

On 5 August 2009, Paquin announced her engagement to her True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer, whom she had been dating since filming the series pilot in 2007.^[15][16] They married on 21 August 2010 at a private residence in Malibu, California.^[17] The couple have fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, born in September 2012.^[18][19] Through her marriage to Moyer, Paquin also has a stepson, Billy (b. 2000), and a stepdaughter, Lilac (b. 2002).^[20] Paquin and Moyer reside in Venice, Los Angeles.^[21]

On 1 April 2010, Paquin came out as bisexual in a public service announcement for the Give a Damn campaign as part of the True Colours Fund, an advocacy group organised by Cyndi Lauper dedicated to LGBT equality.^[22] The True Colours Fund was created to “inspire and engage everyone, especially straight people, to become active participants in the advancement of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality”.^[23] The video features Anna Paquin stating, "I'm Anna Paquin. I'm bisexual, and I give a damn".^[24] When asked about her participation in the video, Paquin responded by saying, "It wasn't like it was a big secret, it was just a cause I cared about and privately supported, but not one that I had ever had an opportunity to speak out about in a way that would be useful. Obviously I know that one person's voice doesn't necessarily do that much, but I just wanted to do my bit."^[25] In May 2012, in a Us Weekly interview Paquin shoots down the popular notion that bisexuality is a choice. "My sexuality is not made up, for a bisexual, it's not about gender. That's not the deciding factor to who they're attracted to," stated Paquin.^[26]

Anna also supports other charities and foundations such as the Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.^[27]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Film

[edit] Television

[edit] Theatre credits

[edit] Awards

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anna Paquin

• Anna Paquin at the Internet Movie Database

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Anna Paquin