Yes, Virginia, This Pocahontas Is for Real

"We didn't realize how big this was going to be," Saskia says, looking a little overwhelmed and muttering about Hollywood's "claws." "Sometimes I want to put the brakes on things."

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Ask her why she thinks she was tapped to play Pocahontas, and Q'orianka shrugs.

"I honestly don't know," she says.

Does she think she's good in the film?

Long silence.

"Mmmmmm," she says, choosing her words carefully, "I really don't like looking at myself like that."

And then she starts talking about the other actors in the film: Farrell; August Schellenberg, who plays Chief Powhatan, her father; Christian Bale, who plays her husband; Irene Bedard (who voiced Pocahontas in Disney's animated feature), who plays her mother.

Those guys, she says, now they're actors .

It was a given that the role of Pocahontas would go to an unknown, says the film's producer, Sarah Green: There were no "name" American Indian actresses to tap, beyond Bedard, who, at 38, was too old for the part. So for eight months, 13 casting directors fielded thousands of candidates from around the world for the role. Beauty was a requisite, as was the ability to convey strong emotions with little dialogue. Someone who could play a young girl and a mature, albeit young, wife and mother -- Pocahontas died in her early twenties. And learn Algonquian. And speak in an English accent. (Pocahontas learned English from the Brits.)

"We were getting nervous," Green says. Seven months into their search, Kilcher's picture ended up in their offices. She'd been passed over for a role in Steven Spielberg's TNT miniseries, "Into the West," by the same people casting "The New World." Someone thought she looked like a young Pocahontas, with her swath of long hair, honey-brown skin and chiseled features.

Green wasn't so sure: At 14, Q'orianka was much younger than they'd wanted. But she took her in for an audition anyway. The audition lasted nearly a month, with Q'orianka going in nearly every day, reading from the script, singing, playing an Indian flute, both Green and Q'orianka remember. They asked her how she felt about speaking with an English accent. Q'orianka went home, listened to a tape, and came back the next day, speaking the Queen's English.