Hier ist, für Englischleser, ein netter Zeitungsartikel über einen Einkaufsbummel den die junge Neuseeländerin Keisha Castle-Hughes vom Film "Whale Riding" neulich in Hollywood machte. Übrigens, wenn Julia Roberts neulich in einem TV Interview nach dem ihrer Meinung nach "Besten Film" gefragt wurde, wählte sie den "Whale Rider" und sagte dass sie hemmungslos ihre Augen ausgeweint hätte als sie den Film zum ersten Mal sah.
Freundliche Grüße Otto
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December 7, 2003
A NITE OUT WITH
Keisha Castle-Hughes, an Innocent Abroad
By LINDA LEE

OS ANGELES
THANK New Zealand for little girls, or at least one 13-year-old who doesn't have a hairdresser, a stylist or an attitude. Keisha Castle-Hughes, the Maori star of the art-house hit "Whale Rider," was shopping for shoes on a recent evening with her mother, Desrae Hughes; the director of "Whale Rider," Niki Caro; and a producer, Linda Goldstein Knowlton.

Being on an indie budget, Ms. Goldstein Knowlton herded the group into a van and steered away from Rodeo Drive toward the cheaper and far funkier Melrose Avenue.

Keisha, whose name is popping up on Oscar lists for her role as a Maori heroine, had already survived riding a mechanical whale a mile at sea while making the film, so her impending obligations, an appearance on "The Tonight Show" and a photo shoot for Vanity Fair, were not fazing her. "You can wear the same things if you want to," Ms. Goldstein Knowlton told her. "I'd rather change," she said politely.

Offered Hollywood, national television and a magazine shoot, Keisha was going for maximum clothes power.

Yet she was the opposite of Paris Hilton in the television series "The Simple Life": she was a girl in the city who relished being an out-of-towner. A way-out-of-towner. "Wow," she said, turning as they headed down Melrose past a store display, "I thought that was a real cow." Later she crowed, "Ooooh, look, gum balls!"

Keisha's mission was to buy shoes to match the two dresses that had been delivered to her hotel by a New Zealand fashion designer. "Let's get something we can wear twice, with both dresses," she said sensibly. (Keisha is from Auckland, New Zealand, so "dresses" is pronounced DRAY-cez.) She rolled up her jeans before slipping out of flip-flops and into flat sandals. "We Kiwis go barefoot everywhere," her mother said, "and so we have flipper feet."

"These are perfect," Keisha said, while her producer and her director discussed something far more frightening than Maori stick fighting.

"She should," Ms. Caro said.

"Did you say should or shouldn't?" Ms. Goldstein Knowlton asked.

"Should get her eyebrows done."

Keisha looked stricken. Ms. Goldstein Knowlton said, "Look, one of us will go first."

Keisha ignored them by trying to walk in a pair of blue sandals that looked like wooden clogs. "Walk like the city," her mother admonished, "not the farm."

Keisha bought the clogs and the flats. In another store, she tried on heels. "You're going to break your neck," her mother warned.

Done with shopping, the group ducked into Johnny Rockets, a 1950's-style diner, where Keisha, who said she wasn't hungry, ordered a chocolate shake, fries and a chicken club sandwich. Then she put a nickel in the jukebox to play "I Will Survive." Later, when Sinatra came on, she was stopped, midbite, by the sight of the waitress, the busboy and the fry cook pounding the counter in time to "My Kind of Town" and doing the old singing-into-a-ketchup-bottle routine.

Next was a screening of "Whale Rider" for a branch of the N.A.A.C.P. at a theater located right next to a Shoe Pavilion store. Keisha was looking for another pair of shoes; these, she said, were for her brother Rhys. But she didn't want Fila, she said. Their shoes are so over. Even in New Zealand. She bought $39 Converse sneakers. "They will fit me as well," she said, "and we can share." Her mother rolled her eyes.

After the screening, at which Keisha talked about being Maori, the group bundled back into the van to return to their hotel, the Mosaic in Beverly Hills. It was 10:30. "I'm going to go to bed," Keisha said.

Her mother answered from the back seat, "That means you are going to put on some music, eat some chocolate, have a fizzy drink and stay up. And I won't be able to wake you in the morning."

Keisha was playing at being fancy. "This is where I get my nails done," she said, gesturing out the window. "And this," she said, gesturing again, "is where I get my poodle washed. Gee, it's a big city, isn't it?"

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