Keisha Castle-Hughes is wincing. It’s not even 9 am and a stranger is plucking her eyebrows. In Los Angeles, things get weird in Oscar season. People who have spent their adult lives in front of a camera get nominated and suddenly they’re on a regimen of lemon juice and colonics for four weeks of dress fittings, photo shoots and awards shows. So imagine you’re a 13-year-old girl from New Zealand who, until two years ago, thought going to the movies was a big deal. Now you’re the youngest best actress nominee ever, flown in from Auckland to LA for five days, from which your Hollywood handlers are determined to squeeze every drop of publicity, even if it means waking you up at 7.30 am so that the makeup artist can pluck your eyebrows before 9.On this day, a couple of weeks before the Oscars, the star of Whale Rider, the story of a Maori girl determined to show her grandfather that girls too can be leaders — is booked on AMC’s Sunday Morning Shootout, then to The Ivy for lunch, then Burbank for The Ellen DeGeneres Show.It’s almost enough to go to a girl’s head, were it not for Desrae Castle-Hughes — Keisha’s mom, a no-nonsense New Zealander of Maori descent. A call comes announcing the arrival of the limousine. ‘‘I need to be home,’’ Keisha sighs. Plucked from an audition by casting agent Dianna Rowan, Keisha had no experience in acting, much less publicityDesrae sees Keisha’s nomination as a ‘‘good thing’’. She is worried ‘‘only as much as any parent would be’’. Does she want her daughter to be an actress? ‘‘It’s up to her. She’s got this thing now that she wants to work at McDonald’s and that’s fine with me.The important thing is that she goes back to school.’’In the car, she gets so high on the cups of coffee since morning she starts dancing, singing, reciting lines of Bring It On, she takes her shoes off — she loathes shoes and never wears them at home. Suddenly she grabs her breasts. ‘‘These are so amazing,’’ she exclaims to no one and everyone. ‘‘No more coffee for you,’’ Desrae says. On the NBC lot, an argument ensues. Keisha is determined not to wear her open-toed, Jimmy Choo shoes for the DeGeneres show. Her feet are too wide, she complains to her mom. ‘‘Keisha, you have to wear them,’’ she says. ‘‘Oh, Mum, don’t tell me what to do,’’ Keisha says. ‘‘OK, everybody, she is grounded,’’ Desrae declares. Keisha wears the shoes. —(LAT-WP)
