Quvenzhané Wallis just made history. With the announcement of the nominees for the 85th annual Academy Awards this morning, the Louisiana-born Wallis, just 9 years old, is now the youngest ever nominee for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Wallis, who was just 5 when she auditioned for the role in "Beasts of the Southern Wild," has received major recognition and critical acclaim for her portrayal of the character Hushpuppy.
Since her breakout role in "Beasts of the Southern Wild," Wallis has now been cast in the upcoming movie "Twelve Years a Slave," which also stars Paul Giamatti, Brad Pitt, and Michael Fassbender.
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" was nominated for a total of four awards. In addition to Wallis' nod for Best Actress, "Beasts" was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director for Benh Zeitlin, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Looking back at her audition for the lead role of Hushpuppy in Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Quvenzhané Wallis is able to put it all in perspective. “If you are a 5-year-old, you just go ahead and try something,” she observes. “You don’t think about it. You are just a little kid.” Of course, she’s older and wiser now. She’s 9 years old.
On the Oscar campaign trail to promote Beasts, Wallis, who loves math and hates writing, often finds herself far away from her life as a fourth-grader in Houma, LA, about 50 miles outside of New Orleans. The Big Easy is the home of Court 13 Productions and independent filmmaker Benh Zeitlin, director of Beasts, his first feature. Beasts—inspired by Zeitlin’s short film Glory Of The Sea and based on Lucy Alibar’s play Juicy And Delicious —premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won the festival’s Grand Jury Prize.
Oscar is buzzing—and already Wallis, who plays a brave little girl trying to save her ailing father, her close-knit bayou community, and herself during a violent hurricane, has picked up the Hollywood Awards’ New Hollywood Award.
Getting the part was a game to her, too. “My mom’s friend called and said they were having auditions for 6- to 9-year-olds,” Wallis recounts. “My mom said, ‘She’s too young,’ and then she just hung up the phone and said, ‘Do you want to go to auditions?’ So we just tried it, and it worked. Because when you are a little kid you are bored all the time, and it’s like, OK, let’s go! It’s kind of good to do things while you’re young,’’ she adds, very seriously.
And what’s it like to watch the movie now? ‘’It’s kind of weird, because you see a bigger you,’’ she muses. “And then you look at yourself, and you think, ‘Why am I so much smaller than the real one up there?’ And then you look at yourself and go, ‘Wait, I’m the real one!’ ’’
Wallis is equally enthusiastic about her fellow castmates, except one: The pig. She’s not talking about the cute, 20- to 30-pound potbellied pigs that were made up to look like the herd of giant prehistoric Aurochs that plague Hushpuppy’s dreams. No, this was a very large Vietnamese potbellied pig owned by Zeitlin, part of the menagerie of critters on Hushpuppy’s property. The pig plays himself in the movie.
The hardest thing was “when I had to touch the pig. I wouldn’t do that because he was Big. Black. Hairy. And. Different,” she says, pausing dramatically between each word. “It was so big, and I was so small, and I knew what it could do to me.” During filming, however, she came to love the pig, and would actually ride him around the set (she explains that now she’s too grown up for that). “We got to be best friends,” she says.
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