Q‘Orianka Kilcher, now 15, was 14 when she was cast as Pocahontas opposite Colin Farrell (as Captain John Smith) and Christian Bale (as John Rolfe) in Terrence Malick’s The New World. Q’Orianka has about as many cultural connections as she does years of life. She was born in Germany, has Quechua/Huachipaeri Indian and Alaskan/Swiss heritage, grew up in Hawaii, and now lives in Los Angeles with her mother and two brothers. She began singing, dancing, and acting at age six, winning countless awards and landing her first film role as a choir member in Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
We recently caught up with Q’Orianka to ask about her role as Pocahontas.
What drew you to the character of Pocahontas?
I didn’t know much about her when I signed on with the movie. But they gave me several books to read, and I’m still doing research on her life. As I learned about her story, I was drawn to her courage and her willingness to dream of two very different worlds coming together, coexisting and collaborating in peace. In a way, her son [with John Rolfe] was a symbol of peace because he was the first interracial child and he was the coming together of the two worlds.
How concerned were you with the portrayal of Native Americans in The New World?
That was the most important thing to me. Portraying Pocahontas’ story well was important to me because she was a real person and these were real events in her life. I think Terrence did a good job of showing the hard birth of America at the death, almost, of a culture. The culture still exists in the Native Americans who remain, but it really began to take a hard beating the day the English arrived in the New World. If Pocahontas had been given the foresight to see what devastating consequences her actions and belief in the possibility of peace would have brought upon her people, I wonder if she would have avoided befriending the English or not.
Pocahontas goes through huge life changes throughout The New World. How were you able to portray such a range?
The clothes helped changed the way I was acting as Pocahontas. In my traditional tribal clothes, I was able to run freely in the woods and do cartwheels and things like that. The first time I tried on my English wardrobe, I had them tie my corset extra tight and give me shoes a size too small in order to feel how constrained I imagine Pocahontas must have felt. I went home that night and cried because I felt like a caged bird, like the freedom was torn away. So it was thanks to the costume designers and Terrence’s script.
What was it like working with Terrence Malick?
He was a really wonderful director. He allowed all the actors to fully immerse themselves in their characters and to bring the characters to life in their own way. He was a very spirit-of-the-moment kind of director. If he saw the wind blowing in the grass a certain way, he suddenly started filming it. So we had to be ready for anything. But I love acting on my impulses. It was like two artists making music together.
We stayed pretty close to the script except that almost all the dialogue was cut out. He would say something like, “Q’Orianka, maybe just say this one line and then don’t say anything else.” That in itself was almost a whole new language because I had to think about what I would have been saying and try to convey it through my expressions and movements.
As a fellow teenager, how much did you relate to Pocahontas’ life?
I really identified with Pocahontas’ struggles as a young woman trying to identify herself in a modern, changing world and trying to stay true to her culture and heritage. Here in L.A. you kind of get stuck in your own little dilemmas and your own little life, and hearing a story like Pocahontas’ reminds you there’s a bigger world out there and there are so many more important things in life.
What lessons can we learn from Pocahontas’ story?
Everyday decisions make an impact on the people around you as well as on the environment. Also, it’s important to learn from the past so we don’t repeat the same mistakes. And always keep hoping and dreaming for a better world.
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