How Quvenzhané Wallis Spent Her Break From Hollywood "Being Normal" - E! Online (2024)

You never forget your first Oscars. Though that doesn't necessarily mean you can recall every detail, either.

"I barely remember any of it, honestly, which is surprising to a lot of people,"Quvenzhané Wallis told E! News' Francesca Amiker in an exclusive interview. "It's very blurry."

Butconsidering the puppy purse-toting phenomwas only 9 when she became the youngest-ever Best Actress Oscar nominee in 2013 for herfirst movie,Beasts of the Southern Wild, it's understandable why the experience may have been a little overwhelming.

"Themost that I remember is being on set for Beasts and being outside and having fun with everyone," shared the now-20-year-old. "But I don't remember meeting a lot of the people, I don't really remember that whole period. I just remember traveling the world and meeting so many different people."

Wallis added, "It was really eye-opening to me as a kid becauseI had only been in Houma, Louisiana, and I got to see everything so fast and so quickly that it was like, 'Oh [nodding and looking around], OK, alright…'"

A hard knock life, it was not, though there was an element of boot camp to it.

"I was having a ball to be able to sing, dance and run around the place," Wallis said of the time she spent in New York making the musical. "I was living the dream."

While "work can start feeling like work, it loses the fun, it loses theoomph," she explained, "Anniedefinitely kept me in the sense of having fun. Also the training, the dance lessons, the singing lessons reminded me you have to practice, even something that you're good at. You can't just expect it to get better and you not put in any work."

Wallis was 11 whenAnniehit theatersin time for Christmas 2014 and she was nominated for a Golden Globe. Butwhile she kept acting,Breatheis her first movie sincelending her voice to the2016 animated hitTrolls.

"Everything about it was new to me," she said of the dystopian thriller, which is set in a New York devoid of oxygen. "The fight scenes, the guns, the mask, the wardrobe and being in the weather—it was alot to deal with, but it was also challenging, and I love a good challenge."

And she got some advice she took to heart from Jennifer Hudson, whoplays her mother in the film, which also stars Milla Jovovichand Sam Worthington.

More seasoned actors would tell her, "'Just be humble,' and they would explain their story and where they came from," Wallis shared. "But that's something that I always have to remind myself of. People watch us [onscreen] and stuff, but we are all human."

Yet it took her a minute to realize that howoften the phone was ringing—or, for a time, not ringing—didn't define who she was as a person.

"I had that gap where I wasn't really working and my self-esteem dropped and I wasn't too sure of myself," Wallis explained, "and just talking to people since then has slowly rebuilt that. Jennifer told me, 'Go for it, what's the worst that can happen? Someone tells you no? You've already experienced that and you made it past that. Just go for it.'"

"That gap was really just me being 'normal' to the best extent that I could," Wallis said. "I was in high school and playing sports and I was on the dance team, just living life. But I was still auditioning and that's what made that gap the hardest thing for me, because I went back to being in a normal environment. No one treated me special, no one treated me like I was anyone…important."

She laughed knowingly. "I was just allowed to be me, I was allowed to find who I was as a person," she continued. "So I'm grateful for that breakbecause I wouldn't have been this person if it wasn't for that. I don't know who I would have been if I'd just continued to work all throughout that time and made it here. I don't think I would like the person that I would be if that happened."

Now that Wallis is here, though, she's still figuring out how to best balance her career and private life.

"I can't even lie to you, I'm still learning!" she said. "It's been 10 years, I'm still trying to get there."

But she does know that, if it were possible, she would tell a certain Oscar-nominated 9-year-old not to take the whole Hollywood thing—or herself—so seriously.

"Not everybody really cares about what you're doing or how you look," Wallis said. "Everybody's so involved with their own life, so you can't hold them to your standards. Just beall of you, and don't let what youthinkother people are looking at or wondering [get to you]. Just don't. Be you."

Breathein now playing in theaters and availablevia digital and On Demand.

And as you're mulling Wallis' wise words, keep reading to see what came next for more child actors who made a splash in Oscar-nominated movies: