Q’Orianka Kilcher on the Affect “The New World” Had on Her Attitude: Did the movie make her think differently about her native roots? Kilcher said it definitely had a positive affect. “It made me love it even more. It made me even prouder of who I am and of my roots. I just want to learn even more about my culture and about the Algonquin culture, because I fell in love with Pocahontas and the Algonquin Tribe.”
Q’Orianka Kilcher on Terrence Malick’s Editing Choices: After seeing the film, did she feel there were big pieces of her performance missing from the theatrical release cut? “Yeah, but all the actors, we just went on set, we gave the best of our ability and after that it’s up to the way the director cuts it and does the editing. And there’s also a time limit of how long the film can be so, unfortunately, lots of the scenes were cut out. But I’m very excited that there’s going to be an extended version on the DVD.”
What can we expect of the extended version? Kilcher said, “Lots of stuff that I was kind of very bummed not to see in the movie. Like some of Pocahontas’ lowest points in life that were taken out. ...You know the part where John Smith [Farrell] is chopping wood in the back and this is after Pocahontas is kidnapped and she’s brought back to the James Fort? She comes to Smith and he’s chopping the wood. Pocahontas actually, that day, I had a knife and I was going to stab him and that really showed that she was going to kill her heart. Because in the beginning, Powhatan tells his daughter, ‘You need to put your people before your own heart,’ and he’s referring to Smith. And so that really showed Pocahontas was about to kill her own heart. And then she gets really confused and then you see her gradually start to fix herself until Smith leaves. It was also missing some of the more, happier times. More of the Indian village. Like we were once dancing around this huge bonfire—everyone. It was so gorgeous. They told me that a lot of the scenes that I was missing were going to be on the DVD so I’m excited. It’s going to be somewhere.”
Q’Orianka Kilcher on Scenes She Was Happy to See Survive the Editing Process: “I was excited to see that they kept most of the scene with John Smith when he comes to London and Pocahontas is there, and her torment in seeing him again and her final realization of loving John Rolfe [played by Christian Bale]. I was really glad because they didn’t really cut too much out of those scenes and I was really glad to see that.”
