Anna Paquin Actress 1982
New Zealand's first female Oscar winner
Few child stars go the distance in the way Anna Paquin has. The young actress stole hearts with her performance in Jane Campion's acclaimed 1993 drama The Piano, for which she won an Academy Award — making her the second-youngest Oscar winner in history at the age of 11 and New Zealand's first-ever Oscar winner. Her success brought New Zealand to Hollywood's attention, paving the way for more young Kiwi talent, including Keisha Castle-Hughes, Julian Dennison and most recently Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie. A Canadian-born Kiwi, Paquin continued to build a dynamic career into adulthood, receiving critical acclaim and accolades for her performances through the decades. She broke into the blockbuster world by landing the role of Rogue in X-Men (2002), a role she returned to twice over. She showed off her dramatic chops in a number of indie films such as Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale and Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret, the latter of which is widely acclaimed as a cult masterpiece.
She helped lead the dawn of the peak-TV era with the game-changing vampire series True Blood, a daring fantasy drama that she carried the lead role of for seven seasons. She continues to straddle film and television worlds, recently appearing in Netflix's Alias Grace and the Canadian crime drama Bellevue. On top of her preternatural Oscar win, Paquin has been nominated for five Golden Globes, winning one.
