“Wow”
is all that kept repeating in my mind over and over again as this
young, hot new 11 year old sat down and provided us with incredibly
well expressed and articulate responses to our interview questions.
To boot, she’s multifaceted! Who
ever heard of a girl at her age writing her own novel and drawing
her own fashion designs? I am
certainly intrigued by what’s next for her.

In
the meantime, Shephard plays tomboy Donna in the upcoming film UNACCOMPANIED
MINORS.
Her character is a tough little chick that picks fights with
everyone. Check out what she
had to say.

Quinn
Shephard

How did you get
the part in this movie?

My
agent called and said that I had an audition to do so we went to an
audition in

New York

. I had a good feeling so a couple of days later they called and
said that I was going to fly out to California for the call back and
then after the call back they called me a couple of days after I got
home and told me that I got the role and that I had to be there in
like a week. So that freaked me out a little bit.

How is going so
far with shooting the movie?

It’s
a lot of fun because of all the kids.
Everyone is really great and there’s never a dull moment
with other kids your age.

How old are
you?

I’m
actually only 11, which is the age I’m playing in the movie, but
everyone else is actually older than me.

Do you relate
to your character? Are
you a tomboy in real life too?

No
really I’m not at all because I really like pink and purple.
I wear skirts and everything like that and I’m not really a
tomboy or tough or athletic in real life.

What’s your
character like?

She’s
very tough. She beats
these people up and sort of a tomboy, very athletic and sheltered
from everybody else.

Did you do any
stunts yourself?

Yeah
there were a couple of stunts there.

What did you
have to do?

Well
there is a scene there where I get into a couple of fights with
Grace, then I punch Charlie and he tries to stop me and in the very
beginning I have to punch Santa Clause.
So that was actually a fun scene to do and it was supposed to
be horrible but it was really funny.

Were they movie
punches or did you hit really hard?

No
that was hard because they get you to hit into something but you
have to keep your wrist straight or else you could hurt yourself. It’s
really hard.

Do you like
playing a tough girl?

Yeah
it’s really fun to play the total opposite of who I am because
it’s like when I’m on camera I’m this way and I’m off camera
I’m this way. So
it’s interesting to change.

What’s the
most exciting day you’ve had on set?

Probably
the gold cart scenes were really exciting because there was a lot of
driving and yesterday we had the airbags and we had to go in the air
ducts and that was really, really hard to do because there was this
whole set up and you had to crawl through it all day and today my
knees hurt and my arms are sore.

Did you
actually drive the carts?

No,
it was remote control?

How is Paul [Feig,
the director] to work with?

He’s
really great. He’s a
great director and he’s so fun to be with because he’s so open
to new ideas. He’s
definitely the nicest director I’ve ever worked with.

Have you
improvised?

Yes,
I have and I’ve gotten ideas and all the other kids have as too
and he’s always said to go ahead.
He’s so cool and open.

Are you the
leader if the tough kids in the movie?

Not
really. I’m just sort
of grossed out by everyone there.
I’m just sort of hanging around and thinking that they’re
all amateurs. Have you
seen the room? It’s
covered in food everywhere.

Are you in the
canoe scene?

Yes!!
The canoe scene has to be the most exciting scene.
We filmed it very late at night and it was freezing cold.
One night it got down to 6 degrees.
They have the canoe hooked up to the big machine and they
drag you down the hill really fast and we are all screaming at the
top of our lungs the first day because it’s so scary.
We’re at the top of this mountain and looking down this big
hill and all of a sudden we go shooting down in a canoe.
What’s with that? We’re
in a canoe! ‘That’s weird.

Did
you guys all get along on the set?

Yeah we all definitely get along because we have so much fun
together. We do so much
fun things like laser tag, and we play together and do a lot of fun
stuff.

What do your friends
think of you being in movie?

I think my friends are really excited for me and I just want
to really say thanks for being enthusiastic with me because I have
like 4 best friends and they’ve all been very enthusiastic with me
and I talk to them a lot on the phone and they really miss me and I
think it’s so mice to have friends that support me.

Where do you live?

I live in
New Jersey
but a lot of the kids here are from

California

.

What have you done thus
far?

This is my first film that I’ve actually been a character
in but I’ve been acting since I was 3.
I got my first job when I was 3 1/2 in a gold fish
commercial. I did
commercials for a while and then I got a part in the movie
“Harrison’s Flowers” that filmed in the

Czech

Republic

and I played Andy MacDowell’s daughter.
Then I continued doing commercials for a while until I was 7
or 8 and when I was 7 1/2 I got a part in a film festival movie and
then I was auditioning for movies and then I got this film.

How did you get into
acting?

Well
my mom was an actor when she was a young adult and she was acting
for a long time pretty much until she got married.
She did some acting on SNL and some commercials and movies.
She sort of saw that I had the same enthusiasm when I was
really little so she got me into acting really early.
So I think I love acting because you can be anyone you want
to be when you’re acting and it’s a lot of fun because you
don’t only have to be yourself.

Who do you want to be
that you haven’t been yet?

Well here’s a couple of things, I sort of want to be a
ghost for some reason and I thought it would be interesting to be a
crazy person or a witch or something.
It would be interesting to haunt someone.
I’d like to play some kind of super hero or like some evil
villain who’s trying to blow up the world.
I think it would be really cool to play that.

If it wasn’t for
acting, what other career would you chose?

I want to be an artist in a couple of different ways.
I want to be a designer and maybe an actor or singer or
artist literally. I draw
my own designs and I would love to go to NYU or FIT because I’m
really interested in arts.

When
you do a movie like this, do you talk to the costume designer or
other people that do jobs like that?

Well I didn’t really get a chance to do it because I work a
lot but yeah I do that. I
also want to be a writer.

Do you write right now?

Yes I’m actually writing a novel right now.
Everyone thinks I’m to young to be writing a novel.
I really want to write novels showing how much peer pressure
really affects girls around my age.
It’s sort of a book about a girl who gets into a group of
girls who are stuck up because of peer pressure.
I have about 40 pages so far.

Do you have any help or
are you doing it all on your own?

I am doing it all on my own.
Sometimes I’ll have something happen in my life and I’ll
be like that’s going in my story and then I’ll find a way in my
story to work it in. Sometimes
I get ideas in my head and I’ll write it down.

Do you want to make a
movie based on your book?

Well I would love to write a movie.
Sometimes there are things in a book that you can’t do in a
movie even with a narrator and there’s something’s in a movie
you can’t do in books. I
think that it’s good to have a variety.