Keisha Castle-Hughes (born 24 March 1990) is an Australian-born New Zealand film actress who rose to prominence at the age of eleven when playing Paikea "Pai" Apirana in the 2002 film Whale Rider. For her performance in the film, Castle-Hughes was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the youngest-ever nominee in the category at the time, and won the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. Castle-Hughes has appeared in films such as Hey, Hey, It's Esther Blueburger (2008), the New Zealand tele-movie Piece Of My Heart (2009), and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). She played Mary in The Nativity Story in (2006), and appeared in Red Dog (2011) and Thank You for Your Service (2017), among several other films.
