Anna Paquin facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Anna Paquin
Paquin in 2018
Born	(1982-07-24) 24 July 1982 (age 42) Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Other names	Anna Emery
Citizenship	New Zealand (from mother) Canada (by birthplace)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1993–present
Spouse(s)	Stephen Moyer ​ (m. 2010)​
Children	2
Awards	Full list

Anna Paquin (born 24 July 1982) is an actress from New Zealand. She started acting in the movie The Piano (1993). For this role, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress when she was only 11 years old. This made her one of the youngest Oscar winners ever.

As a child, she also acted in movies like Fly Away Home (1996) and Almost Famous (2000). Later, she became famous for playing Rogue in the X-Men movies. She also starred as Sookie Stackhouse in the TV show True Blood (2008–2014). For True Blood, she won a Golden Globe Award.

Early Life

Anna Paquin was born in Winnipeg, Canada, on July 24, 1982. Her mother was a teacher from New Zealand. Her father was a physical education teacher from Canada. Anna is the youngest of three children. She has a brother named Andrew and a sister named Katya.

When Anna was four years old, her family moved to Wellington, New Zealand. She went to schools like Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School and Hutt Intermediate School. Her parents divorced when she was 12. She later went to Wellington Girls' College. At 16, she moved to the U.S. and finished high school at Windward School in Los Angeles. She also studied at Columbia College for a year before focusing on her acting career.

Her Acting Career

Anna Paquin at a TV festival in April 2009

The director Jane Campion was looking for a young girl for her movie The Piano. An advertisement was placed in a newspaper for open auditions. Anna's sister saw the ad and decided to try out. This made Anna want to audition too.

Anna had only acted once before, as a skunk in a school play. But when she auditioned, the director was very impressed. Anna was chosen from about 5000 other kids. When The Piano came out in 1993, critics loved it. It won many awards and became a very popular film. Anna's acting in the movie earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994. She was only 11 years old, making her the second-youngest Oscar winner ever.

The Piano was a small movie, and Anna's family did not plan for her to keep acting. However, she started getting many offers for new roles. She appeared in commercials for MCI and Manitoba Telecom Systems. In 1996, she acted in two films. She played young Jane in Jane Eyre. She also had a main role in Fly Away Home. In this movie, she played a girl who cares for orphaned goslings after her mother dies. As a teenager, she appeared in movies like A Walk on the Moon and Almost Famous.

Anna played the superhero Rogue in the Marvel Comics movie X-Men in 2000. She returned as Rogue in X2 (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). Between 2006 and 2007, she starred in and helped produce Blue State. This movie was made by "Paquin Films," a company she started with her brother.

Anna Paquin at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con

In 2008, Anna was cast as Sookie Stackhouse in the HBO series True Blood. This was her first role in a TV series. The show is about vampires and is based on books by Charlaine Harris. While working on True Blood, she started dating her co-star Stephen Moyer. They later got married in 2010. In 2009, Anna played Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved many children during the Holocaust. This was for a TV movie called The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler.

In 2014, Anna played Rogue again in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Most of her scenes were cut from the movie shown in theaters. But a special version called The Rogue Cut was released later with all her scenes. Anna also voiced the character Ramsey in the Disney•Pixar movie The Good Dinosaur (2015). She played Nancy Holt in the 2016 TV miniseries Roots.

In 2019, Anna appeared in Martin Scorsese's movie The Irishman. That same year, she also produced and starred in the TV series Flack. In 2023, Anna starred in the Netflix movie True Spirit. She played Julie Watson, the mother of a young sailor who tried to sail around the world alone.

Personal Life

Anna Paquin with her husband and True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer in 2009

On August 5, 2009, Anna Paquin announced she was engaged to her True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer. They had been dating since 2007. They got married on August 21, 2010, in California. Anna gave birth to twins on September 12, 2012. She also has a stepson and a stepdaughter from Stephen's previous marriage. The family lives in California and visits New Zealand every year.

Anna supports many charities and foundations. These include the Children's Hospital Los Angeles, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre

Accolades

See Also

In Spanish: Anna Paquin para niños

• List of actors with Academy Award nominations
• List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of New Zealand Academy Award winners and nominees