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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, June 27, 2003

Kiwi teen sheds shoes and image for film debut

By Christie Wilson
Neighbor Island Editor

Keisha Castle-Hughes, 13, star of "Whale Rider," attended the recent Maui Film Festival, where the New Zealand movie played to glowing reviews. While her role called for her to swim, go barefoot and be "more of a tomboy," she says at heart she's a city girl who found taking off her shoes "a big thing."

Christie Wilson • The Honolulu Advertiser

Auckland teenager Keisha Castle-Hughes seems an unlikely choice to play the role of a Maori girl living in a traditional coastal village in the New Zealand film "Whale Rider."

The petite 13-year-old enjoys city life and describes herself as a "girlie-girl" who loves to shop. She doesn't know how to swim, and said one of her biggest challenges in making the movie was having to go barefoot all the time.

That's why they call it acting.

Castle-Hughes' performance as a spunky girl struggling to win her grandfather's acceptance while challenging her tribe's patriarchal traditions has critics gushing about the screen newcomer. The New York Times praised her "delicate charisma," Rolling Stone called her "a star in the making," and Roger Ebert said, "This is a movie star. She glows."

She's even been labeled a likely Academy Award nominee.

"That's pretty big. The Oscars are pretty big. It's even hard to think about it," said Castle-Hughes between appearances at the recent Maui Film Festival.

Castle-Hughes wouldn't be the first child actress from that country to make it big. Fellow Kiwi Anna Paquin won the best supporting actress Oscar for 1993's "The Piano," and has become more well-known for her role as the mutant Rogue in the "X-Men" film franchise.

The same casting director who discovered Paquin visited Castle-

Hughes' school looking for talent and picked her out from the back of a classroom of sixth-graders. The girl had no prior acting experience and no particular aspirations to be in the movies, although as a child she was drawn to the glamourous side of the business.

"When I was small, I wanted to act, because the ladies wore pretty dresses," she said.

When Castle-Hughes was asked if she was Maori and if she could ride a bicycle, two key elements of the story, she answered "yes" to both questions. When she was asked if she could swim, she said, she lied out of fear.

"I was really intimidated by Diana (Rowan), the casting director. She was just some random lady walking about my classroom. That was a bit scary," Castle-Hughes said.

The filmmakers didn't discover the girl couldn't swim until after production had begun, so a stunt double was used for a climactic scene that required her character, Pai, to swim underwater.

An intensive four-week rehearsal preceded the eight-week movie shoot. "We improvised a lot of stuff. ... I took to it quite naturally," said Castle-Hughes, who was 11 at the time.

The role required that Castle-Hughes drop her city ways. "I had to learn to be more of a tomboy. The first thing I had to do was take my shoes off. It was a big thing for me."

Castle-Hughes said she was always proud of being Maori, but gained more knowledge and respect for the culture during the filming on location in Whangara, on New Zealand's east coast. Coincidentally, it's the same community — about an eight-hour drive from Auckland — where Castle-Hughes' relatives live.

"On the shoot, it was just like going home. My family lives up there just up the road," she said.

Despite the differences in their backgrounds, Castle-Hughes said, she was able to bond with her character. "We're both very strong-willed and independent-thinking. She's a lot like me."

And although Castle-Hughes said she has never experienced the kind of gender discrimination Pai faces in "Whale Rider," the actress feels the movie's larger theme is not confined within the context of Maori culture.

"It's all about a girl trying to find her place in society, very much like in the world today," she said.

Since the movie debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, Castle-Hughes has toured Australia and the United States, appeared at the trendy Sundance festival, and met Dustin Hoffman and fellow New Zealanders Sam Neill and Paquin.

As a city girl at heart, she said, New York City was her favorite stop.

At home — where she lives with three younger siblings and her mother, who runs an after-school care program — Castle-Hughes said she's recognized on the street, but "New Zealanders are laid back about it. It's not like they come up and hassle me at all."

"Whale Rider" is expected to surpass "Once Were Warriors," a starker film about an urban Maori family, as the most successful film to come out of New Zealand. But even with the success of her first screen outing, Castle-Hughes said, she's not sure she wants to continue acting.

"At the moment, I just want to go to school and be normal," she said.