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Keisha Castle-Hughes

Though Keisha Castle-Hughes had always dreamed of being an actress, she never thought that she would actually be one. Plucked from roughly 10,000 New Zealand schoolgirls to play the part of Paikea in "Whale Rider" (2002), Castle-Hughes put in a performance that was hailed by critics the world over, especially since she never acted a day in her life, even in a school play. But Castle-Hughes's depth of character and range of emotion was apparent to director Niki Caro and casting director Diana Rowan-who also discovered Anna Paquin for "The Piano" (1993)-from the start. It took several months, and eight or nine auditions, but the then-11-year-old landed the part, and with it, her one-time dream of being an actress turned into reality.