Merry Christmas from Keisha Castle-Hughes World

Keisha Castle-Hughes' most recent Filmography

MOVIE: Thank You for Your Service

Keisha - Alea

Manhunt: Unabomber (TV Series) Tabby

- Abri (2017) ... Tabby

- Publish or Perish (2017) ... Tabby

- Fruit of the Poisonous Tree (2017) ... Tabby

- Pure Wudder (2017) ... Tabby

- UNABOM (2017) ... Tabby

Game of Thrones (TV Series) Obara Sand

- Stormborn (2017) ... Obara Sand

- The Winds of Winter (2016) ... Obara Sand

 - The Red Woman (2016) ... Obara Sand

- Mother's Mercy (2015) ... Obara Sand

 - The Dance of Dragons (2015) ... Obara Sand

- The Gift (2015) ... Obara Sand

- Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken (2015) ... Obara Sand

- Sons of the Harpy (2015) ... Obara Sand  

The Video Store (TV Mini-Series) 2017 Keisha - Customer

 MOVIE: Find Your Voice 
Keisha- Princess 
 

Roadies (TV Series) Donna Mancini 

- The Load Out (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- The Corporate Gig (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- The All Night Bus Ride (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- Carpet Season (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- Longest Days (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- Friends and Family (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- The City Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- The Bryce Newman Letter (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- What Would Phil Do? (2016) ... Donna Mancini 

- Life Is a Carnival (2016) ... Donna Mancini

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Happy Halloween from Keisha Castle-Hughes World

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Keisha Castle Hughes returns to TV with Unabomber

Keisha Castle-Hughes knows something I don't. We've been chatting about movies, TV and being Kiwis in the USA. Today she's in New York to meet the East Coast press ahead of the release of the Discovery Channel series Manhunt: Unabomber. Keisha appears alongside big-screen heavy-hitters Sam Worthington (Hacksaw Ridge) and Paul Bettany (The Da Vinci Code) as Worthington's partner in the FBI's hunt for Ted Kaczynski (Bettany), who waged a one-man campaign of terror from 1978 to 1995 via mailbombs sent to American businesses and universities.

 So we're up here in the slightly baroque Fifth Avenue splendidness of New York's Peninsula Hotel, when we find ourselves talking about how being a TV actor is no longer anything like second tier compared to being in a movie, and how the TV roles have recently become often the more prestigious. With TV shows now often having the best scripts, the best directors, and the best budgets, it is completely possible in 2017 to be a major star without ever being blasted through the projector at anyone's local multiplex

So I say to Keisha something like 'and you must know that better than anyone here, you're on Game of Thrones after all...' But I swear she gives me the tiniest of frowns before her usual grin reappears. Two days later, at home in Brooklyn, I'm curled up on the couch with the cat and a beer watching with some embarrassment as Keisha meets a typically gruesome fate at the hands of current Thrones' boo-hiss villain Euron Greyjoy and some slightly sadistic writer's imagination. Keisha would have shot those scenes months before. Of course she couldn't say a thing. But it must have stung a little to be reminded. Keisha Castle-Hughes has been a working actor since she was 12 years old. In 2002, despite having no on-screen experience, she was cast in Niki Caro's film adaptation of Witi Ihimaera's novel Whale Rider. It's the stuff of New Zealand legend now that her work in that film led to Keisha becoming the then youngest ever nominee for an Academy Award for Best Actress. She lost out to Charlize Theron – who was the favourite by daylight for her role in Monster – but the recognition put Keisha firmly in the sights of directors and casting agents from all over the world.

 Parts in numerous movies and high-end American TV have followed, with that recurring role as the ill-fated Obara Sand in Game of Thrones – aka, the biggest TV show in the world – surely being a highpoint. In Manhunt: Unabomber, Keisha locates a tough, streetwise, whip smart and irrepressible woman who serves as a worthy foil and co-conspirator to Worthington's slightly maverick FBI agent Jim Fitzgerald. Her role is a composite character, but based closely on a couple of actual agents. As she says, "it's there in the writing. As soon as I started to read the script I was like...I'm fighting for this one. She's a brilliant, brilliant woman to play". Which, coming from an actor who scored an Oscar nomination the first time she set foot on a film set and has played Jesus's mum (in 2006's The Nativity Story) to great critical acclaim, is some high praise. "I think a lot, maybe most, of the best roles are being written for the TV shows now. Especially as the movies play it safer and safer, the roles written for women in Hollywood seem to be getting...I dunno, more cliched maybe? But over a season of TV, every character has to develop and grow and the interactions between the characters have to be believable. Otherwise, we'll just switch off. It's kind of a golden age I reckon. I just hope it keeps going." While she says this, the table falls silent. The other four reporters, along with Worthington and Manhunt:Unabomber writer and producer Andrew Sodroski have all paused their own conversations to listen to what Keisha is saying. It's a nice moment, a genuine breakout in a media forum that usually makes it hard to get a word in edgeways. Keisha notices the silence and looks around the table. She grins. "Kiwis..." we both laugh.

Is Keisha Castle-Hughes engaged?

Those watching the social media account of Kiwi Game of Thrones’ actress Keisha Castle-Hughes are wondering — is she or isn’t she engaged? The LA-based actress is on holiday with boyfriend, visual effects co-ordinator and producer James Uddo, and there have been hints the pair may be engaged. They flew to Istanbul earlier this month then moved to the Greek islands — and that’s when the romance skipped up a notch. On the island of Paxos, Castle-Hughes, 27, posted a picture of Uddo on bended knee with a cryptic description. Next up she posed with a cocktail which she was “engaged to”. The social media congrats started and then the cocktail post was deleted. On Valentine’s Day 2013 she married DJ Jonathan Morrison, but the pair later separated. Castle-Hughes daughter with Bradley Hull, Felicity, is now 10 years old. As for getting a romantic marriage proposal in Greece, Castle-Hughes made a rare comment on the speculation: “No, no — not engaged at all! Just having a fabulous time in Greece with family and friends,” she told Spy.

Keisha Castle-Hughes "GIFof the Day"

Nymeria Sand and Obara Sand Come to an end

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Keisha Castle-Hughes on 'Insane' 'Game of Thrones' Death: 'It's a Really Cool Way to Go Out'

Game of Thrones isn’t afraid to get gruesome with its deaths -- and they upped the ante on Sunday’s episode. In the episode, titled “Stormborn,” Oberyn Martell’s eldest daughter, fierce warrior Obara Sand (Keisha Castle-Hughes), suffered a “gruesome” demise during an epic sea battle, when she was impaled in the stomach with her own spear. Obara wasn’t the only Sand to die -- her sister, Nymeria Sand (Jessica Henwick), also suffered the same fate, at the hand of her own whip.

“It was insane,” Castle-Hughes told ET with a laugh, of her character’s farewell episode. “You know what? It’s a really cool way to go out. One of the greatest things about [the show] is that it’s always promised to give each character an on-screen death. However, they’ve fallen into -- after seven seasons -- having to top the last death every time. We can’t forget the end of last season, when we lost half the cast in one massive explosion, so how do you top that? They did it!” The 27-year-old actress opened up about the physical demands of filming the intense HBO fantasy drama, revealing that Obara’s death scene had quite a lot of moving parts.

“It’s a very physically demanding show. The characters we were playing were incredibly physically demanding. There are a lot of elements at bay to play with. You’re wearing leather armor and you’re on a slippery ship. There are a hundred people around you and you gotta make sure that you hit the spear at the right actor, otherwise it could go wrong really quickly,” Castle-Hughes said. “They have a great stunt team who -- I don’t know how they do it -- somehow choreograph it and make it all work. It’s wild for it to come to an end." Castle-Hughes confessed she always imagined Obara’s death scene to be less fierce and more low-key, a total contrast to her usual all-business demeanor. “I kept pitching -- the thing is, with Obara Sand, she’s so over-the-top in a good way -- and we used to always make up these backstories with the girls who play my sisters. Jessica Henwick [who plays Nymeria] and I would just make these stories up, like Obara just needed a night out. She was just so serious about killing everyone all the time, it was like, gosh, settle down!” she recalled.

 “Because she’s so fierce and angry and ready for battle at all times -- every scene she’s asleep, she’d be in full armor while other people are sleeping normally and she’s with her spear ready to fight. Imagine if she just ate something, if she left Dorne and she ate something bad and got food poisoning and died,” Castle-Hughes mused, chuckling at her idea. “Wouldn’t that be great to see something like that take a fierce character like that down?” Though Castle-Hughes says “of course” she wishes she had more time to dig deeper into her character’s family backstory, she confesses it was hard jumping into the vast world in season five. “In terms of our characters as a whole, it was a very difficult job from the get-go because it was an introduction of a lot of characters at once and an entire new world, followed by the introduction of Oberyn Martell, played so eloquently by Pedro Pascal,” she said. “It would have been nice if we could have explored who those people were, but it would have been difficult to develop characters when you have such a big ensemble and you’re following so many storylines. What we were able to contribute, in terms of toward the story as a whole, and I am really proud of the work that we did together.”

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Curtain Call: Keisha Castle-Hughes

When I was a child, Oberyn came to take me to court. I’d never seen this man, and yet he called himself my father. My mother wept, said I was too young…and a girl. Oberyn tossed his spear at my feet and said, “Girl or boy, we fight our battles—but the Gods let us choose our weapons.” My father pointed to the spear, and then to my mother’s tears. I made my choice long ago.

Obara Sand (Keisha Castle-Hughes) and her sisters were game for anything, but were rarely given enough space to affect the story of Game of Thrones in any meaningful way. Obara was the oldest of the eight bastard daughters of Oberyn Martell. Like her father, she wielded a spear, and like her father, she died using it.

Castle-Hughes played the role of the stoic, attack-them-all-head-on Obara with aplomb, first appearing alongside her half-sisters Nymeria and Tyene in season 5’s “Sons of the Harpy” — she killed a captain merchant captive in that scene, probably the most memorable moment from it. She’s often seen leading the way after that, such as when she spearheads the attempt to kidnap Princess Myrcella Baratheon in “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. Then there was the time she drove her spear through the back of Trystane Martell’s skull (and then grinning about it) in “The Red Woman.” She was violent all around, that Obara. Obara died in battle—as she surely would have wished—at the hands of Euron Greyjoy in “Stormborn.” Euron used her own spear to kill her, though, which probably isn’t something she wants on her tombstone. Although maybe she’d find comfort in the fact that both she and her father died in ways that were kind of embarrassing for them.

Keisha Castle-Hughes came into Game of Thrones with a great pedigree — at the age of 13, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her work in Whale Rider (2004). She’s also appeared in major movies like Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, The Nativity Story (as Mary) and in TV shows like The Walking Dead and Roadies. You’ll soon be able to see her back on the big screen alongside Miles Teller in Thank You for your Service, about a group of American soldiers struggling to adjust to civilian life after spending extended time on the battlefield. Game of Thrones never found a way to fully Obara’s potential or use Castle-Hughes’ full range of talents, but she put in a good showing regardless. We wish her well.

Manhunt: "Unabomber"

“Manhunt: Unabomber,” 8 p.m. Aug. 1 on Discovery • Paul Bettany is Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski in an eight-episode scripted series following the FBI’s search. Jane Lynch, Chris Noth, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Michael Nouri are among the stars.

Discovery said today it will premiere its scripted anthology series Manhunt: Unabomber with a special two-hour episode Tuesday, August 1 at 9 PM. The series depicts the true story of the FBI’s famed hunt for the Unabomber, the deadliest serial bomber in history.

Sam Worthington and Paul Bettany star as FBI agent Jim “Fitz” Fitzgerald and Ted Kaczynski, respectively. Fitzgerald was a fresh-faced criminal profiler and newest member of the Unabom Task Force, and faced an uphill battle against the bureaucracy of the UTF as his maverick ideas and new approaches to forensic linguistics were dismissed. That work eventually led to Kaczynski’s capture 17 years after his first bombing in 1978. Brian d’Arcy James, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Trieste Kelly Dunn, Elizabeth Reaser and Rebecca Henderson co-star in the series, from Lionsgate and Trigger Street Productions. Greg Yaitanes executive produces, directs and serves as showrunner. John Goldwyn produces. Andrew Sodroski created the series and serves as an executive producer. Fitzgerald will serve as consulting producer. Discovery announced the premiere date for its second scripted series (after last year’s miniseries Harley And The Davidsons) as part of its upfront presentation to advertisers in New York.

Happy Memorial Day from Keisha Castle-Hughes World

Keisha Castle-Hughes "GIFof the Day"

Happy Cinco de Mayo from Keisha Castle-Hughes World

May the 4th be with you from Keisha Castle-Hughes World

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Happy Easter from Keisha Castle-Hughes World

Has Keisha Castle-Hughes got a new man?

Has US-based Kiwi actress Keisha Castle-Hughes got a new man? The 26-year-old — who in 2003 was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of Paikea Apirana in hit movie Whale Rider — is LA-based and making huge strides in her acting career. In Auckland her husband, Jonathan Morrison, hosts a Thursday night radio show on bFM. The pair married on Valentine’s Day 2013. For the past few months Castle-Hughes has been sharing amorous pictures to social media of herself with visual effects co-ordinator and producer James Uddo. He has worked on blockbusters including Independence Day, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Deepwater Horizon and Fantastic Four. The pair’s travels have taken them to Cuba, Dublin, Paris, Copenhagen and London. Castle-Hughes was loath to talk about her relationship status, saying in an email reply: “I’d prefer to not comment on my personal life at this time but thank you for the opportunity.” But the popular actress was happy to say that her career was going well, stating: “2016 has been a very busy year for me. I am currently shooting Season 7 of Game of Thrones which is always an absolute blast. “I will be next seen in Jason Hall’s American war-dram Thank You For Your Service alongside Miles Teller, Amy Schumer and fellow Kiwi Beulah Koale. “I have had a fantastic 2016 and am in a very positive place in my life.” Castle-Hughes has also been linked to a role in Manifesto; an upcoming FBI drama series being produced by the Discovery Channel. The series will star Sam Worthington. Morrison also wouldn’t comment to Spy about his relationship status with Castle-Hughes.

Keisha, Miles Teller, Amy Schumer War Drama ‘Thank You for Your Service’ Gets Fall Release

DreamWorks Pictures’ “Thank You For Your Service” starring Miles Teller and Amy Schumer will be released on Oct. 27, 2017. The film also stars Haley Bennett, Joe Cole, Beulah Koale, Scott Haze, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Brad Beyer, Omar J. Dorsey and Jayson Warner Smith. Jason Hall, who wrote the screenplay for “American Sniper,” makes his directorial debut with this project and also wrote the script. Jon Kilik will produce the film, while Ann Ruark will executive produce.

 

The drama is based on the bestselling book by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author David Finkel. It follows a group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq who struggle to integrate back into life after war as they’re still haunted by the horrific memories of a war that threatens to destroy them long after they’ve left the battlefield. Teller will play Adam Schumann, a great soldier who leaves Iraq a broken man, and Bennett will play his loyal, supportive wife.

Happy Birthday Keisha from Keisha Castle-Hughes World's "Pic of the Day"

HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY 

 TO 

 KEISHA CASTLE-HUGHES

Happy St.Patrick's Day from Keisha Castle-Hughes World

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Keisha Castle-Hughes quotes #24

“I didn't understand the concept of what acting really was. To receive recognition at that level and not understand it is like working backwards. Now I know that I want to be an actor. I have realized that I am intrinsically designed to do this, and nothing else satisfies the hunger that I have.”

Woman’s Day Interview with Keisha Castle-Hughes

Keisha Castle-Hughes' Brave Battle

When Woman’s Day catches up with Keisha Castle-Hughes in Auckland, she’s just flown in from Los Angeles especially to see her nine-year-old daughter Felicity pick up a sporting trophy at her school prizegiving. She’s squeezing our chat in between shooting a music video and having a dodgy mole removed from her leg. In a couple of days, she’s jetting out again to begin filming the final two seasons of Game of Thrones in Belfast. “I’m not sad about it finishing,” insists the gorgeous 26-year-old, who splits her time between LA and Aotearoa. “It’s nice to see the show to the end and I’ve made so many lovely friends, but life’s a blur at the moment. I’m like, ‘What is happening?!’” Indeed, Keisha has been caught in a showbiz whirl almost since she shot to fame at 12 in Whale Rider and became the youngest person nominated for Best Actress at the Oscars. “Now I feel like the oldest woman in the world – I’m a complete nana,” she smiles. The itinerant lifestyle hasn’t been good for her mental health, confesses Keisha, who revealed she suffers from bipolar disorder after the tragic suicide of her good friend Charlotte Dawson in 2014. “A lot of creatives are bipolar because your life requires you to act like that,” says the star.

“It still affects me, but I’ve found ways to manage. For me, what works is therapy and keeping fit. It’s awfully boring, but it’s about exercising and eating well. Of course you’re going to feel s* if you’re sitting on your butt and eating bad food. It sounds simple, but I still slip up.” Mental health is a big passion for Keisha. “We don’t talk about it enough,” she insists. “We spend a lot of time asking people how they are, but we’re not necessarily willing to hear a real answer. I make an effort to be honest with my friends and check in with them. If they’re having a crap time, I want to know about it.” Keisha reckons normalising this talk is one way to combat New Zealand’s shockingly high youth suicide statistics, which outrage and baffle her. “I mean, we sell ourselves as being this clean, green, happy place where everyone’s always outdoors,” she says. “In LA, they’re always surprised when I tell them I’ve experienced a lot of suicide in my life. “My best friend committed suicide when I was in high school. There was a whole string of them. It was awful and so surreal. I wasn’t emotionally or mentally equipped to deal with it. When you’re young, you get caught up in the drama rather than the reality. “If someone gets to the point where suicide is their only option, there’s a deeper problem at play. Suicide is very much a symptom of mental-health issues, but while we talk about cancer and other diseases that kill people, we don’t talk about mental illness. We need to.”

 Mental health and suicide are both issues explored in the lyrics and video for her debut single 'In the Morning', a collaboration with her good friend, artist and entertainer Mika, which premiered at the Aroha ’17 Festival of Ideas in Auckland on February 15. It will also feature on the soundtrack to an upcoming US blockbuster. “It’s not a power ballad or a pop song,” Keisha smiles, acknowledging her unlikely move into music. “It’s more like rap or poetry.” Keisha’s first musical memory is of owning a 12” by gangsta-rap group NWA when she was five. She recalls, “I’d play it on my record player, which was supposed to be for bedtime stories. I’ve no idea how I got my hands on it. I’ve been heavily into rap ever since, although I did go through a Spice Girls phase, charging people 20 cents to watch me do the routines. I still love them.”

When she was nine, Keisha wrote her first song, with lyrics including, “I’m sitting down here by the rose-petal tree, waiting for some guy to come rescue me.” She grins, “How sad is that? I was obsessed with having a boyfriend.” Last time we met Keisha, she told us she wanted to renew her vows with her husband Jonathan Morrison, who she married on Valentine’s Day in 2013. Now they’re rumoured to have split and she is reportedly dating special-effects coordinator Jimmy Uddo. But the actress is keen to be known for her work rather than her love life. Says a friend, “She doesn’t want to be known as New Zealand’s answer to Elizabeth Taylor.” However, while she might be coy about her relationships this time around, Keisha is an open book when the topic turns to sex, another issue addressed in her song.

 

“Kiwis are quite prudish when it comes to talking about sex,” she muses. “I never really noticed that until I lived overseas. I’ll talk about the sex I have or a masturbation workshop that I’ve been to and people tell me I’m really out-there, but I’m just comfortable with my body. “When I was a teenager, I wasn’t really comfortable. All through the Whale Rider journey, I felt weird in my skin. Maybe if we talked about it more, it wouldn’t be an issue.

“It’s like mental health, really. We need to talk more and worry less about what other people think.”

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Keisha Castle-Hughes quotes #23

“When I was nominated for an Oscar, I didn't know whether or not to be an actor. It was something that I just did,”

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

A nice see-through shot of Keisha Castle-Hughes from a promo photo for the Aroha '17 Film Festival, presented by the Mika Haka

Keisha Castle-Hughes releasing rap song

After hitting the big time in Hollywood over the last few years (Star Wars, Game of Thrones), Keisha Castle-Hughes is making her musical debut. Speaking to Woman’s Day, the Kiwi star revealed she has battled with anxiety, depression and has bipolar tendencies.

One way she has learned to deal with it is by expressing herself though rap poetry. Mental health and suicide are issues she expresses in her debut single In The Morning. It’s a collaboration with her friend and entertainer Mika, which will premiere at the Aroha ’17 Festival of Ideas in Auckland on February 15.

“It’s not a power ballad or a pop song” says Keisha. “It’s more like rap poetry.” The Oscar nominee admits that she has always had a strong passion for music and in particular, hip-hop. The first album she owned when she was just 5 years old was by rap group, NWA. “I’d play it on my record player, which was supposed to be for bedtime stories. I have no idea how I got my hands on it… I’ve been heavily into rap ever since.” Another topic that is raised in her song is sex. “Kiwis are quite prudish when it comes to talking about sex.” “It’s like mental health, really. We need to talk about it more and worry less about what other people think.” We look forward to hearing In The Morning next week.

Keisha Castle-Hughes to star in an X-rated movie

Next Wednesday the Aroha ’17 Film Festival, presented by the Mika Haka Foundation, will open with In the Morning, When the Sun Does Shine, a short film that serves as a prelude to an upcoming feature film from flamboyant artist Mika Haka. The prelude stars Keisha Castle-Hughes and is written and directed by Haka, who also produced it with Castle-Hughes. The film is an erotically charged tale where viewers will see Castle-Hughes like she’s never been seen before.

Shot in the privacy of the Mika Haka Studio in Auckland, it sees Castle-Hughes engaging in a provocative sexual act. The film centres on a sex addict with an unquenchable thirst for adventure, as he attempts to escape from his boring daily existence in corporate life. It s based on a song by Haka called In the Morning. Haka tells us in an interview with Spy: “After many lunches between Auckland and LA, script revisions, lyrics and song trials, Keisha and I came up with this scenario as a first step towards our other goals. “We believe limitations create art. When you have it all, you don’t work the same. Yes, a $10 million budget would have been nice, but not for this first work.

“This short film had to capture the tone, the feel, of what I see in future projects.” When Spy asked Haka about Castle-Hughes taking part in such a sexually charged movie, he said: “I needed a woman who could convey a sexual strength and power. “Her character is not subservient to anyone, she is in charge at all times. The really explicit scenes did not involve her.” Castle-Hughes said in an interview with Spy: “I trust Mika in his sincere approach and reasoning to the sexual content in the film.”

Keisha Castle-Hughes "Pic of the Day"

Atlanta Now Casting: Kevin Spacey-Produced ‘Manifesto’ and More

Today in Atlanta notices, you have the chance to get involved in “Manifesto,” a scripted series from executive producer Kevin Spacey. The drama seeks male and female talent ages 30–55 to play SWAT team members in background roles. The production will be ongoing from January–June 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia and will provide some pay. The drama, staring Paul Bettany and Keisha Castle-Hughes, will take “an in-depth look at how an FBI profiler helped track down the Unabomber.” For more information on “Manifesto,” see the full listing here. And check out more fantastic Atlanta opportunities in Backstage casting.

Keisha Castle Hughes TBT

Keisha Castle-Hughes attends the premiere of HBO's 'Game Of Thrones' Season 6 at TCL Chinese Theatre on April 10, 2016 in Hollywood, California. As we can see Keisha is looking very hot and sexy in this very revealing red dress which to top it off she went bra-less!!