Anna Paquin stares wide-eyed as she gulps in air, omitting a sequence of tiny hiccup-like sounds. Twenty seconds pass before she speaks.
It was 1994 and Paquin’s inability to talk was due to shock. She’d just won an Academy Award for her role in The Piano.
Incredibly, she’d been victorious over A-listers Emma Thompson, Winona Ryder and even her co-star Holly Hunter.
Her win was even more remarkable given Paquin was 11 and it was her first professional acting job.
Her win made her the second youngest Oscar winner in history, behind Tatum O’Neal, and propelled the Canadian-born New Zealander onto an international stage.
“At the Academy Awards, when I won with The Piano, I was just confused that everyone knew who I was. I was just some kid from a small town in New Zealand,” she told The Guardian.
“After I got the award – because my parents had set me up not to be disappointed if I didn’t win and didn’t explain what I should do if I did – I broke Oscar protocol by taking my trophy down the stairs and back to my seat.
“If you look back at the footage, you can see people trying to stop me, and I’m just walking away to sit back down with my mum.”
What followed after The Piano was a string of roles for Paquin that saw her grow up on screen – from the children’s film Fly Away Home, historic dramas Jane Eyre and Amistad to the teen films of She’s All That, X-Men and Almost Famous.
“I’d just moved to LA; I was starting a new school; I was in my junior year and learning about how psychotic and scary the college application process was,” Paquin recalled in a 2019 interview with The Hollywood Reporter of her time filming She’s All That.
“My head was in a lot of places, it was less in the analysing exactly what the cultural significance of the work I was doing and more like ‘I really need to get an A in that test or I’m not getting into the school I want to get into’.”
In her late teens, Paquin toyed with the idea of quitting acting. Instead, she had enrolled at Columbia University to study French and English literature.
“I’ve had some really amazing experiences, and I’ve had some absolutely horrific experiences,” she told The Guardian of her early years in show business.
“People treat people who have no power, sometimes, in ways that are completely unacceptable. But when you’re a child and you don’t know any different, and you don’t want to get into trouble, you just keep your mouth shut.”
A stint treading the theatre boards reignited her passion.
In 2004 she performed in Broadway and also off-Broadway productions and starred opposite Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney in the 2005 film The Squid and the Whale.
A steady stream of film roles followed, before Paquin switched to the small screen, taking on the lead as Sookie Stackhouse in the vampire fantasy series True Blood.
“I was surprised that anyone wanted to cast me as blond and perky, and he (True Blood writer Alan Ball) asked me several times, ‘So, you seriously want to do a TV show for seven years?’ I was like, ‘Yes’,” Paquin told The New York Times in 2011.
“Sookie is about as radically different from me and a lot of the work I’ve previously done as you could possibly come up with. It completely appealed to me.
“But I was like, ‘OK, this is going to come down to, She’s just not blond enough as a person.’ Which, by the way, apparently is a thing. Which I have heard before. That you’re just not a blond person. I don’t actually know what the hell that means.”
True Blood gave Paquin another hit. It also introduced her to her future husband, English actor Stephen Moyer.
As she recalled in 2019, meeting Moyer wasn’t a love at first sight moment, but rather the pair did a screen test together and got on really well.
“Ultimately you’re signing a seven-year contract for a TV show, so you’re not looking to be dating. It’s not really a great policy,” she told hosts Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest.
“We’re quite stupid to having actually done that… but we sort of figured if it was nobody’s problem, it was nobody’s business.”
The couple became engaged in 2009 and married a year later at a private residence in Malibu, California “surrounded by their family and friends,” their rep said in a statement.
Outside her time as a mother and actor, Paquin is also an executive producer. She runs a production company, Casm, with Moyer.
In 2014, the couple signed a two-year first-look deal with HBO. The company has produced the 2013 feature film Free Ride, while Paquin has executive produced the 2007 series Bellevue and the 2019 series Flack. She stars as the lead in both.
“Being an executive producer means you’re a gigantic control freak. I am absolutely a control freak. I genuinely believe it’s in my DNA,” ,” she told The Guardian.
“I have twins and I can confidently say there are some personality traits that people are born with. I care about details. I care about things happening in the right way. I’ve learned how to make that happen on a set, and it never involves shouting.”
In April this year, Paquin sparked public concern for her health after taking to the red carpet with her husband with the assistance of a cane.
After posting a photo of herself from the evening, the actress was flooded with messages from concerned fans.
The actress has reportedly battled an undisclosed health issue for the last two years.
She told People her journey “hasn’t been easy,” adding she’s now also dealing with issues regarding her speech.
“I am extraordinarily touched and moved by people showing that they care and being interested and kind about it,” Paquin told Entertainment Tonight of the response to appearance.
“At some point, I will probably elaborate on my own platform in my own words.”
