Q'Orianka Kilcher (Fred Thornhill, SUN).

LOS ANGELES -- So who exactly is Q'Orianka Kilcher and why is she starring in Terrence Malick's new film, The New World?

Not so long ago, the 15-year-old Kilcher -- her first name is pronounced kor-ee-ahn-ka and means "golden eagle" in English -- was a musical street performer on Santa Monica's famed Third Street Promenade.

Now the striking teenager finds herself doing interviews for her portrayal of legendary Native-American character Pocahontas in the $30-million The New World, which opens in theatres Friday.

"This is like the dream role," Kilcher, a second cousin of folk-pop singer Jewel, told reporters recently.

"I didn't know who Terrence Malick was ... I had no clue. And so I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into until the first day that I was on set. Then I got really scared because I was scared that I might hold up the entire production by not getting something right. But everybody, all the actors, and everybody on set was very supportive and they really helped me along the way."

Kilcher was born in Germany to a Peruvian father -- she currently only sees him every couple of years for two or three days at a time -- and a Swiss mother but was raised in Hawaii. (She met Jewel when she was just two or three months old and hasn't seen her since.)

About a decade ago she moved to Los Angeles with her mother and two younger brothers, aged 13 and 5.

The acting bug bit when Kilcher was only five or six but her journey to the big time really began when the family's musical equipment was stolen from their van, and the Los Angeles Times ran a front page story about it. An agent at William Morris offered to help the then nine-year-old Kilcher, who is home-schooled, get auditions for films.

She had a bit part in 2000's How The Grinch Stole Christmas as a choir singer and auditioned for Steven Spielberg's TV series Into The West. It was the latter's casting director who suggested her for The New World.

"She saw my photo on the table and thought I looked like an Indian Julia Roberts," remembers Kilcher, who ended up going on about 15 to 20 auditions. "I was actually more tired at the end of auditions than five months of filming."

Producer Sarah Green admits the filmmakers, who looked at about 800 actresses before casting Kilcher, were taking a big gamble going with an unknown .

"She does carry this movie," Green says. "That's why we didn't cast her on the first audition even though she completely captivated us. She's beautiful. She's got that stillness that draws you in. She's got that mystery. She had the most essential things we were looking for and we recognized that immediately. But that's why we spent weeks with her to make sure we could take that leap of faith with her."

Helping to seal the deal was when Kilcher blew everyone away with her rendition of a blues song.

"They asked me to do a traditional dance and play my Native American flute," Kilcher says. "And then they asked me to sing and I sang Doctor Feelgood for them -- yeah, a blues song! I love the blues! -- and that's ... when they decided that I was going to be able to pull off the older Pocahontas."

Malick, the reclusive director and Texas native, has made only four films in 32 years -- Badlands (1973), Days Of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998) and now The New World.

His new film depicts the famed meeting between Pocahontas and British explorer Capt. John Smith, played by Irish actor Colin Farrell , after the English boats land in Virginia in 1607 and establish the settlement at Jamestown. (Farrell checked himself into rehab right before promotional interviews for The New World were to start).

Pocahontas saves Smith from death at the hands of the Natives and the two later fall in love before he eventually abandons her. Previously the tale was told in Disney's 1995 animated feature.

"When I was in the auditions, I just knew the cartoon, like everyone else," Kilcher says. "But when I got to Virginia, the production had a great research team there and they gave me a whole bunch of books to do my research ... I'm still doing a whole bunch of research about her and reading books to this day. I fell in love with it."

As part of the acting process, Malick didn't allow Kilcher to meet Farrell until their first on-screen meeting.

"He was the sweetest, sweetest person," Kilcher says of Farrell. "Such a generous actor. I mean, he was like my older brother, and he took me under his wing, and helped me so much to get into the flow of being on such a big movie and stuff."

Kilcher, who was accompanied by her mother and two brothers to The New World set, found herself at home in the Virginia woods, a mere five miles from the original British fort and Native American village.

She loved to frolic as Pocahontas -- which means "playful one," in English -- in hand-stitched animal skins and was not fazed by the rugged set conditions as she grew up camping, hiking, canoeing and kayaking. She even camped with Farrell and her family during filming.

As for Malick's love of improvisation, that wasn't a problem either.

"You never knew what was going to happen, you had to be ready for anything," Kilcher says. "It was very challenging but I love challenges. And Terry was a very spur-of-the-moment kind of director and acted on his impulses. I loved that because I love acting on my impulses at the risk of being wrong, of looking silly or something. It was really great even though it was very tiring sometimes."

Kilcher's greenness as an actor didn't put off her co-stars either. On the contrary.

Christian Bale, who plays British tobacco plantation owner John Rolfe, who later marries Pocahontas, couldn't get enough of it.

"I really like working with unknown people because you don't know what they're going to do," Bale says with a laugh. "And because you see them as nothing but the character. There is no history that I could look to. So in meeting Q'Orianka -- I came into the movie late, they'd already been shooting for good two and a half months already, I was only there for like the last four weeks of filming -- to me she pretty much was Pocahontas."

Now Kilcher finds herself the subject of press queries, going to film premieres and taking meetings "for some very phenomenal scripts" in the future.

At times, the hectic schedule has taken its toll.

"I love it," she says. "I'm savouring every minute of it because you never know if you're going to do it again. A few days ago, I thought I was going to pass out a few times but I'm doing better and I'm excited to be doing this. I have my family with me and they're my biggest supporters and as long as I have my family with me, I'll be fine. I could lose everything."

As for her former life, serenading shoppers in Santa Monica, she plans to return to the street one day.

"I'm not allowed to perform there right now," she says, citing her film contract. "I want to go there next year and I really want to sing on the promenade again. I really loved being there and I loved seeing people smile and singing for them."

And, no, she doesn't think she's missing out on being a "normal teenage girl."

"Actually, the only friend that I have, and she's 13 years old but she's very mature, is my agent's daughter," Kilcher says. "But I don't have too many friends my age because their whole day revolves around dressing up and going to the Third Street Promenade and chasing boys the entire time. I mean, yeah, that's fun for a little while, except I would rather be reading a book than doing that, or hiking or writing songs."

More Artists