Anna Paquin

Anna Paquin (born July 24, 1982) is a Canadian-born New Zealand actress. Her breakthrough performance was in the New Zealand film The Piano, which earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994, making her the second youngest winner in history at the age of 11. She is also the first Canadian-born actress to win Best Supporting Actress.

Anna 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 has two older siblings: brother Andrew, born in 1977, and sister Katya, born in 1980. Paquin moved to New Zealand when she was four. She attended the Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School until she was eight or nine. Her musical childhood hobbies in New Zealand included playing the viola, cello and piano. She also did gymnastics, ballet, swimming and downhill skiing, though she did not have any hobbies related to acting.

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.

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.

Anna Paquin returned to worldwide prominence with her role as Rogue in the blockbuster X-Men movie in 2000, the sequel X2 in 2003, and the third installment X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006. In the summer 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. In November 2006, she completed Margaret. This film is now scheduled for release in 2009, according to imdb.com.

In 2007, Paquin received an Emmy Award nomination for Supporting Actress In A Miniseries Or A Movie for her role as Elaine Goodale in HBO's made-for-TV movie Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, based on Dee Brown's bestseller. She also received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations in similar categories.

In 2008, Paquin appeared as 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. 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 has also been nominated for a 2009 Saturn Award for Best Actress in Television. The second season of the show began airing on June 14, 2009.

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 biopic 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

Paquin lives in Venice, Los Angeles, California. Her hobbies include surfing and cycling.