Best Known As: Sookie in the HBO vampire series True Blood
Anna Paquin is the actress who stars as Sookie Stackhouse in the cable TV series True Blood. Paquin, a Canadian native who grew up in New Zealand, was only 11 when she won an Oscar as best supporting actress for her moody performance in the Jane Campion's film The Piano (1993, starring Holly Hunter and Harvey Keitel). She moved to Los Angeles in 1995 and starred in Jane Eyre and Fly Away Home (both 1996), but then slowed down and appeared in smaller roles during her teen years. Since 2000 she's been known to moviegoers as Rogue from the X-Men movies (starring Hugh Jackman), and to TV viewers for her roles in the movies Bury My Heart at wounded Knee (2007) and The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler (2009). In True Blood, which began in 2008, she plays a spunky telepath who falls in with a group of vampires.
Paquin is the second-youngest Oscar winner, after Tatum O'Neal, who won at age 10 for 1973's Paper Moon... She married her True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer on 21 August 2010.
An Oscar winner at the age of eleven for her performance in The Piano, Anna Paquin was the first New Zealander to receive the Best Supporting Actress honor and one of the youngest Oscar winners ever. Born July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Paquin was raised in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. After making her stage bow at the age of seven as a skunk in a school production, she decided to audition for the part of Holly Hunter's precocious daughter in Jane Campion's The Piano. One of 5000 applicants, Paquin--whose previous work was limited to TV commercials--won the role, and with both the success of the 1993 film and her Oscar win, entered the realm of international fame. Aside from a series of TV ads for a computer company, Paquin retreated from the limelight until 1996, when she emerged, now a teenager, in the acclaimed family drama Fly Away Home. That same year, she could be seen playing a younger version of the title character in Franco Zeffirelli's adaptation of Jane Eyre.
After playing Queen Isabella in Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997), Paquin assumed her first adult role, portraying a teenage runaway presented as a "care package" to two Hollywood bottom feeders in Hurlyburly (1998). The following year, she stepped back into more wholesome coming-of-age territory, playing Diane Lane's daughter in the critically acclaimed A Walk on the Moon and taking advantage of the current teensploitation wave with a small role in the popular high school comedy She's All That. That same year, she appeared in the star-studded ensemble drama All the Rage, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
By 1999, Paquin was ready to reach a larger audience as an adult actress, and she found the perfect vehicle for this with the role of teenaged mutant Rogue in the movie big-budget comic book adaptation X-Men. She would reprise the role for the movie's sequels in 2003 and 2006, while also making modest, critically acclaimed appearances in movies like 25th Hour and The Squid and the Whale. Then in 2008, Paquin landed the part of telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse in the sexy vampire series True Blood on HBO. Based on a series of mystery novels, fans at first balked at the Kiwi actress's ability to embody the thoroughly Southern character, but Paquin won over old and new fans alike, pushing the series to become a massive success. Additionally, Paquin would find personal fulfillment on the set of True Blood as well, as she and co-star Stephen Moyer would strike up a romance and eventually get married in 2010. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
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. Paquin is the youngest of three children; she 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 Green party 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 East Girls' College, she completed her high school diploma at Windward School in Los Angeles, where she moved 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 an LA soup kitchen and at a special education center. She studied at Columbia University for one year, but has since been on a leave of absence to continue her acting career.
Career
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 movie 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 movie 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 movies. 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]
In the fall of 2006, she completed filming Blue State. She was the executive-producer of the film, the film having been 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.
In 2008, Paquin appeared as waitress Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood, 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, LA.[14] Paquin won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Drama Series for her role in the show, and also won a Satellite Award in a similar category. She was also nominated for the same category in the 2009 Golden Globe Awards. The second season of True Blood premiered in the US in June 2009. Season three premiered in June 2010, and season 4 in June 2011.
Paquin was cast in a cameo role in Scream 4, which was released in 2011.[16]
Her next film is Straight A's, co-starring Ryan Phillippe, due for release in 2012.
Theatrical career
Paquin made her stage debut in 2001 in a production of The Glory of Living at the MCC Theater. She won a 2001–2002 Theatre World Award for her performance.[17] She has since appeared in a number of other plays, but only once outside the USA, when she appeared on the West End stage in London in a production of This is Our Youth in 2002.
On August 5, 2009, it was announced that Paquin was engaged to her True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer, whom she had been dating since filming the series pilot in 2007.[18][19][20] On August 21, 2010, Paquin and Moyer married at a private residence in Malibu, California.[21] Through her marriage to Moyer, Paquin has a step-son, Billy, born in 2000, and a step-daughter, Lilac, born in 2002.[22] Paquin and Moyer reside in Venice, Los Angeles.[23]
^http://djuna.cine21.com/anna/27.html Canada News Wire October 27, 1997 "Anna Paquin to be MTS's Celebrity Spokesperson Academy Award Winning Actor Stars in MTS Commercials Beginning Today ", retrieved 2011 August 29
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