"Even if I get a certificate at school and I have to go on stage, I get really nervous and I freeze and I can't talk and I can't walk"

[On playing Mary in the Nativity Story] "When I got the part, it didn't hit me at first," says Castle-Hughes, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress at age 12 for her role in Whale Rider, one of 2003's best films. "But on the plane over here, I was writing in my diary, and then it hit me: Ohhh! I'm playing Mary! The biggest thing, you never think that she was just 14 and carrying a child. She was just a girl, and then the next day, she's a woman and married, and the next she becomes like the mother of the world."

[On learning to play a pregnant woman for The Nativity Story] "My mum's 8½ months pregnant right now," she says, "so she's going through exactly what my character is going through. She's giving me great advice. All I know is that after this, I'm never having a child!"

"I keep having to pinch myself to make sure I'm actually awake. The Oscars are so big -- they're huge ... I'm totally humbled and ecstatic. No words are enough to explain ... it's like, wow. It's absolutely incredible." - after finding out about her Academy Award nomination

[on being asked if acting what how she expected it to be] "Definitely not what I expected it to be. All I ever saw were famous people getting what they wanted when they wanted it and I was shocked at the fact that I actually had to work."

[on Whale Rider] "Watching that film made me proud to be a New Zealander."

[on whether she wants to be an actor when she's older] "I want to be a science teacher. My friends asked me why, but I'm intrigued by it and I'm quite good at science at school."

"I'd always wanted to act but it wasn't just that, it was because all the ladies wore pretty dresses."

[on her Whale Rider character] "I think we're both strong willed and independent, and Pai has a great unique quality about her. She's an 11-year-old girl who's confident about who she is and knows exactly who she is. Not many 11-year-old girls are like that. She's a great role model for young girls. I think I'm like that too."

[on her role in Star Wars III] "I was on for 10 seconds and if you see me you're lucky."

"Your private life should be private. I reckon that's a good thing that you talk about your work and you talk about what you're doing, but without having to go into how your brother's been and how your mum's been because none of that's really relevant."

[on roles she's been offered since Whale Rider] "They're all really sexual roles or they all think that I'm still 11. They send me scripts and I say that I'm too young or not old enough and they're like, 'Well just come in and see us.' And so I go in and they're like, 'Oh, you've got tall and you've got hips and you've got boobs.' And I'm like, 'Yeah. That's what happens.'

[on being interviewed during Oscar time] "For four weeks straight I didn't know what I was doing. It was like I had this little tape in my head and I'd sit there and they all would ask the exact same thing and I'd hit play and I'd be like, 'Blah blah ... ' in this monotone and they'd be like, 'Are you OK, dear?"'