Paquin 'rich and bored'

By BRONWYN SELL in London

New Zealand child prodigy Anna Paquin turns moody teenager this month as she makes her West End debut alongside Star Wars actor Hayden Christensen.

Paquin, who won an Oscar for her role in The Piano, will star in This is Our Youth at the Garrick Theatre as a rich, bored New York teenager. It is her second play - she recently made her New York stage debut in Rebecca Gilman's The Glory of Living.

Paquin told Time Out magazine she had a lot to learn about theatre, which she said was scarier than film.

"A film set is a stable environment because everything you do gets processed by familiar people before anyone outside of the 'family', if you like, of your production team lets it out," she said.

"On stage you are the editing suite every night. You could have the most amazing team around you, but if you get up and fall over, that's your problem."

The play, set in 1982, the year Paquin was born, follows three rebellious teenagers as they steal US$15,000 ($34,900) from their parents and blow it on a drug-fuelled, 48-hour spending spree.

Paquin's co-stars, Christensen and Jake Gyllenhaal, are rated the latest teenage heart-throb and the next big thing in Hollywood, respectively. Christensen plays Anakin Skywalker in the upcoming Star Wars movie, Attack of the Clones, and Gyllenhaal was in October Sky.

The three have been dubbed "the new Hollywood brat pack" in the American press.

The play was written by Kenneth Lonergan, who was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for last year's film You Can Count on Me, which he wrote and directed.

The play's promoters say it is a tragi-comic portrayal of youth on the brink of adulthood and a witty insight into the ache at the heart of the "slacker" generation.

The play opens on Friday and runs until April 20, after which Paquin returns to the US to reprise her role as Rogue in Fox's X-Men sequel.