This little lady is Paquin heat!
Will Anna Paquin unearth an Emmy for her turn in ‘Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee’?

Raise high the roof beams, Hollywood carpenters! Anna Paquin is moving to Los Angeles.

The actress, who at age 11 won a best supporting actress Oscar for her first film, “The Piano,” is nominated for an Emmy for best supporting actress in a miniseries for her turn in HBO’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” Paquin, now 25, will also be starring in Alan Ball’s new show “True Blood,” which was recently picked up by HBO.

“My brother and his fiancé and I all pitched in and bought a place,” Paquin said on a phone call from her current residence in New York. “I’m getting sick of crashing on couches and hotel rooms, so it will be nice to have an actual place.”

Paquin’s talent is unusual. She’s not always likable (she played annoying like nobody’s business in Spike Lee’s “The 25th Hour”), nor always high minded (see “X-Men” I, II and III). But so what? She’s been memorable in nearly everything she’s done.

You’re nominated for an Emmy for “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.” Can you tell me about the character you played?

Basically the film is about the events by which the land was taken away from the native populations of America and the horrific, traumatic things that happened. My character was a poet, a teacher and a journalist who lived and worked at the Indian reservation and was an advocate for the causes of the native population. She and her husband tried very hard to preserve the Native American culture as best they could, but their efforts weren’t successful. It was too much and ultimately destroyed the relationship. There is so much stuff that happens in the story. If you are interested in the book, it is 400 pages long.

Have you read it?

Absolutely! It’s pretty weak, if you are doing a historically accurate piece, to not read the source material.

How did you hear about the project?

I got sent the script. It wasn’t a period I was incredibly familiar with. I’m from New Zealand and not that familiar with this particular time in American history, but it piqued my curiosity and I wanted to be involved.

Your publicist told me you got to keep your costume. Do you think you’ll wear it again?

I did get to keep one of the costumes. There is a sequence in the film following the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek when all the severely injured people are taken to the clinic where my [character's] husband worked, and we are trying to patch people up. I get soaked in blood so I needed to have a double of the costume. I kept the one with the blood on it. I have it on this antique mannequin in my living room.

This is pretty much your first television experience. How does working for television differ from working in films? Or does it?

The production value of HBO is just as high as most films. Jesus, like I worked on indie films that had less resources and less sort of high-tech capabilities then one day’s worth of this film. Doing a period piece is not cheap.

I heard you have a show called “True Blood” that just got picked up by HBO. Is it going to be cool?

I damn well hope so! It was just one of those things I still can’t believe I am really going to do — it’s this cool, offbeat, quirky, Alan Ball-created, awesome thing. I’ve never done [episodic] TV before, and to get to keep developing the character beyond two hours, and grow the character … you can do that in theater but only in the confines of the play. I’m really excited to get to live in that world as long as we get to. Even one season is as long as you do in feature films. After we shot the pilot I was like, “I can’t believe we have to wait to find out!” That’s such a tease. Now we know exactly how awesome it is if I don’t get to do it.

What’s the premise of the show?

It’s about vampires in contemporary Louisiana that have recently outed themselves and “come out of the coffin,” and there is a great deal of prejudice and fear surrounding their existence. There is a Japanese company that makes synthetic blood so they can peacefully coexist with humans, and there is all kind of creepy and crazy stuff that happens.

Are you playing a vampire?

No, I’m not. I’m a telepathic waitress. Everything is mostly normal.… The vampires are just a little bit paler, but the relationships and the stories and the plot are not all about it being in a supernatural universe. (Not that there is anything wrong with that! I’ve done three “X-Men.”) Plus I get to be blond. I’m a blond, tanned waitress. They spray-painted me like a car. It was fantastic.

Source: The Envelope / By Deborah Netburn