Keisha Castle-Hughes

Niki Caro was looking for a Māori girl to star in a small film in New Zealand. She found Keisha Castle-Hughes in a schoolyard in Auckland, with no prior experience in front of the camera.

It was in 2002.

That year, the release of Whale Rider suddenly put her in the spotlight around the world. She was thirteen when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences nominated her for an Oscar for Best Actress, a record for precocity that she held for nearly a decade.

Naboo's crown and the weight of fame

George Lucas caught the eye of the filmmakers for the second Star Wars trilogy. In 2005, she played Queen Apailana in Revenge of the Sith, a brief but visually striking role that tied her to a global franchise.

But the transition from child star to adult actress was not easy.

In 2006, she starred in The Nativity Story as the Virgin Mary. Filming coincided with her own pregnancy at sixteen, which sparked a disproportionate media frenzy in the tabloids. At times, the attention on her private life overshadowed her performance in that religious project.

So she chose to step away from the spotlight for a while. She preferred to alternate supporting film roles with appearances on New Zealand TV series such as The Almighty Johnsons in 2011. She kept a low profile while balancing motherhood with an industry that demanded a constant presence in Los Angeles.

From Westeros to FBI offices

Television gave her the space to work without the pressure of constant red carpets. In 2015, she joined the cast of Game of Thrones as Obara Sand, one of the Sand Snakes. She appeared in eight episodes across three seasons until her character died in 2017.

And she found stability in American procedural dramas.

Starting in 2020, she joined the main cast of FBI: Most Wanted. She plays Hana Gibson, a computer and data analysis expert who is part of the show's core storyline. The series reached one hundred episodes in 2024, which ensures its presence on cable television for several consecutive seasons.

In 2023, production of this series was halted for several months by the writers' and actors' strikes in Los Angeles. Castle-Hughes returned to work on the New York set in early 2024 to shoot the fifth season, under a contract that included availability clauses for future franchise crossovers.