Child Oscar winner Paquin relishes "ballsy" role

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-05-06 09:09

Anna Paquin attends a news conference for U.S. director Brett Ratner's out of competition film 'X-Men: The Last Stand' at the 59th Cannes Film Festival, in this May 22, 2006 file photo. Oscar-winning child star Paquin is remembered by many as the prim little girl in 'The Piano,' but these days she's all grown up and enjoys playing a character who punches a guy. (Vincent Kessler/Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oscar-winning child star Anna Paquin is remembered by many as the prim little girl in "The Piano," but these days she's all grown up and enjoys playing a character who punches a guy.

Still petite and looking younger than her 24 years, Paquin's latest role is an Army deserter heading to Canada who hooks up with a liberal blogger abandoning the United States because U.S. President George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004.

"She's really tough and really honest and ballsy," Paquin said in an interview at the Tribeca Film Festival where the film, "Blue State," had its premiere.

"She's not fluffy and girly in a way that a lot of parts that come my way are, like the girl that's just there to smile pretty and make the guy look good and funny," she said.

Paquin, a Canadian who grew up in New Zealand, was 11 when she won a best supporting actress Oscar for 1993's "The Piano," which starred Holly Hunter as a mute mail-order bride who travels to 19th century New Zealand with her daughter Flora.

Since then her roles have ranged from a mutant in the "X-Men" movies to a smart teen-ager in the chick flick "She's All That" and a moody student in "The Squid and the Whale."

"It would be totally boring if I didn't mix it up as much as I do," Paquin said.

Later this year she has a historical epic about American Indians coming out on HBO called "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," and a film titled "Trick'r Treat" that she describes as "really ridiculous, out-there, awesome, creepy horror."

STUDENT FILM

"Blue State," a romantic comedy, was produced by her brother, Andrew Paquin, and directed by a friend he met at film school, Marshall Lewy.

Andrew Paquin said there was no doubt it helped to have an Oscar winner on board when he was seeking to raise money for a film that was Lewy's degree thesis.

"She can pick up the phone and call someone. Starting as a first-time producer, it would take weeks of wrangling to get to that person," he said in a joint interview with his sister and Lewy at a New York diner.

The film stars Breckin Meyer as a campaign worker who is so devastated by Bush's victory in 2004 that he responds to a Web site offering to set up liberal Americans with Canadian wives to gain citizenship.

Paquin's character, Chloe, comes along to share the driving after deserting the Army to avoid deployment to Iraq.

Paquin said one of her favorite scenes in "Blue State" is the one in which Chloe punches John, the campaign worker.

"I loved it," she said with a laugh. "I actually box so I was worried I might accidentally hit him in the face for real."

The film, which Lewy said was inspired by his own experience campaigning for the Democrats, was well received by liberal New Yorkers at the Tribeca Film Festival.

But Paquin said the film is more love story than political tract. "I'm not very political. I'm also not American and I don't get to vote so my feelings are not really relevant," she said.