Keisha's big worry, heels and red carpet

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

The thing most worrying Keisha Castle-Hughes about the Oscars? Making it to the front door. That red carpet is long, her shoes are tall.

Being a 13-year-old from Glenn Innes with a best actress nomination to your name has its drawbacks. The limousine only gets you so far.

"I knew the red carpet was big but I didn't know it was a block until yesterday.

"Ohmigod - I'm not a big heels walker, I'm so from New Zealand. They expect me to walk in heels for a whole block and I'm like, 'no I can't do it'."

But as she talks two days out from the big event the impression left is that Keisha will take the precarious stroll and anything else at the awards in her dauntingly confident stride.

As her mother Desrae, younger brothers Rhys and Liam and Whale Rider co-star Rawiri Paratene are finishing breakfast inside their Beverly Hill hotel, Keisha flicks on a gas heater by the swimming pool outside so we can talk somewhere quiet without risking hypothermia.

Today's look - and you suspect most days when she's not teetering up a red carpet - is skatie-gal.

It's already been a big week for the youngest ever best actress Oscar nominee. She's had the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where she was nominated in the supporting actress category but lost out to Renee Zellweger.

On Wednesday it was over to Chicago for the day to join an Oscar special on Oprah.

In between there's been parties and attending a NZ Government bash for Kiwi Oscar nominees.

Yes, the talkshow queen is just like she is on telly, but Keisha sounds more impressed by meeting fellow nominees and former Oscar winners Sir Ben Kingsley and Holly Hunter, who is nominated as supporting actress for a film yet to be seen in New Zealand called Thirteen, about a couple of girls at that pivotal age.

For Keisha, being 13 - she turns 14 in a month - has proved one long year. She spent eight weeks shooting Whale Rider as an 11-year-old. Two years later those two months are still defining her life. "It is weird, especially for a girl between 11 and 13, it's a big growing up stage and it feels like I can't stand this any longer," she says.

"I've been 13 for ages, as far as I can see I feel like I've been 13 for years and years because so much has happened. I can't even remember being 12."

And the difference between Whale Rider Keisha and Oscar nominee Keisha is making life interesting as she decides on the next stage of her career and tries out for parts in the United States.

"When I look at other parts and then I go in for auditions they give me scripts for like 10-year-old girls. And I'm like 'I don't look 10' and when I tell them that they are like 'just come in for the audition, it's all right' and I go in and it's 'she looks like she's 15'.

"Because here I look so old - at home I'm a baby, I could pass for 10. Here they are like 'she's so old'.

"So then they start sending me scripts for like 17-year-olds. If I choose to carry on acting right at this stage it's so hard to find roles that aren't of girls coming into their sexuality.

"Because I think that what was special about Whale Rider, was it was about a girl coming into her spirituality.

"I've been sent scripts and some of them are terrible - about girls who run around the house naked and want to go out with their stepfathers. It's crazy, it's crazy."

"Crazy" is a word that pops up in Keisha's conversation quite a lot, as does "surreal", especially when talking about how she came to be up for the world's most prestigious acting prize.

"I was discovered in the classroom. I never ever dreamt about being an actor.

"I never did anything about it and all of a sudden everything is happening at once. They say once you have an Oscar nomination, you've reached the peak of your career.

"I haven't even decided if I want to be an actor, so how could I reach the peak of my career if I don't even know what I want to do?"

She also displays a healthy cynicism about the hype and artificial excitements of the Academy Awards.

"Here it's all based on these awards and these awards and these awards and if your life doesn't revolve around it then what are you doing in Los Angeles?" .

And sometimes, she'd just rather be at home, getting on with her old life. Her friends at Penrose High know this all too well.

"I'm so homesick at the moment. It's driving me crazy. Every night I ring my friends and they are all 'Keisha you rang me last night for an hour' and I'm like 'yeah but I miss everyone' and they're like 'Keisha get a life' and I'm like 'I don't have one without you'."

Even the trappings of being on Oscar's A list aren't made for 13-year-olds from the other side of the Pacific.

"I mean, in the Oscar baskets they are giving away trips to New Zealand. What am I going to do with a return trip from LA to New Zealand?

"I wonder if I can swap it but I don't want to leave home.

"And I get all this free stuff and what am I going to do with acid peel and wrinkle remover?

"And you get all these gift certificates for places in Beverly Hills - I'm like I live 12 hours away from here."

Then there's the pressure to attend the famous post-Oscar parties: "I don't really know. That consists of a whole other dress and more shoes.

"I don't know if I can handle any more dresses or shoes. I hate wearing dresses. It drives me crazy."