How Quvenzhané Wallis Spent Her Break From Hollywood "Being Normal"

Originally appeared on E! Online

You never forget your first Oscars. Though that doesn't necessarily mean you can recall every detail, either.

"I barely remember any of it, honestly, which is surprising to a lot of people," Quvenzhané Wallis told E! News' Francesca Amiker in an exclusive interview. "It's very blurry."

But considering the puppy purse-toting phenom was only 9 when she became the youngest-ever Best Actress Oscar nominee in 2013 for her first movie, Beasts of the Southern Wild, it's understandable why the experience may have been a little overwhelming.

"The most that I remember is being on set for Beasts and being outside and having fun with everyone," shared the now-20-year-old. "But I don't remember meeting a lot of the people, I don't really remember that whole period. I just remember traveling the world and meeting so many different people."

Wallis added, "It was really eye-opening to me as a kid because I had only been in Houma, Louisiana, and I got to see everything so fast and so quickly that it was like, 'Oh [nodding and looking around], OK, alright…'"

Best Actress Oscar Looks From 1954 to Now

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Hot off her acting debut as resourceful 6-year-old Hushpuppy in Beasts—a role she earned by distinguishing herself from 3,500 other hopefuls at an open casting call—Wallis appeared in 2014 Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave and scored the lead in the 2014 remake of Annie, costarring Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz.

A hard knock life, it was not, though there was an element of boot camp to it.

"I was having a ball to be able to sing, dance and run around the place," Wallis said of the time she spent in New York making the musical. "I was living the dream."

While "work can start feeling like work, it loses the fun, it loses the oomph," she explained, "Annie definitely kept me in the sense of having fun. Also the training, the dance lessons, the singing lessons reminded me you have to practice, even something that you're good at. You can't just expect it to get better and you not put in any work."

Wallis was 11 when Annie hit theaters in time for Christmas 2014 and she was nominated for a Golden Globe. But while she kept acting, Breathe is her first movie since lending her voice to the 2016 animated hit Trolls.

"Everything about it was new to me," she said of the dystopian thriller, which is set in a New York devoid of oxygen. "The fight scenes, the guns, the mask, the wardrobe and being in the weather—it was a lot to deal with, but it was also challenging, and I love a good challenge."

And she got some advice she took to heart from Jennifer Hudson, who plays her mother in the film, which also stars Milla Jovovich and Sam Worthington.

More seasoned actors would tell her, "'Just be humble,' and they would explain their story and where they came from," Wallis shared. "But that's something that I always have to remind myself of. People watch us [onscreen] and stuff, but we are all human."

Yet it took her a minute to realize that how often the phone was ringing—or, for a time, not ringing—didn't define who she was as a person.

"I had that gap where I wasn't really working and my self-esteem dropped and I wasn't too sure of myself," Wallis explained, "and just talking to people since then has slowly rebuilt that. Jennifer told me, 'Go for it, what's the worst that can happen? Someone tells you no? You've already experienced that and you made it past that. Just go for it.'"

Child Stars Then and Now

And though it was admittedly hard to not book every job she tried out for, she wouldn't trade her break from the spotlight for anything.

"That gap was really just me being 'normal' to the best extent that I could," Wallis said. "I was in high school and playing sports and I was on the dance team, just living life. But I was still auditioning and that's what made that gap the hardest thing for me, because I went back to being in a normal environment. No one treated me special, no one treated me like I was anyone…important."

She laughed knowingly. "I was just allowed to be me, I was allowed to find who I was as a person," she continued. "So I'm grateful for that break because I wouldn't have been this person if it wasn't for that. I don't know who I would have been if I'd just continued to work all throughout that time and made it here. I don't think I would like the person that I would be if that happened."

Now that Wallis is here, though, she's still figuring out how to best balance her career and private life.

"I can't even lie to you, I'm still learning!" she said. "It's been 10 years, I'm still trying to get there."

But she does know that, if it were possible, she would tell a certain Oscar-nominated 9-year-old not to take the whole Hollywood thing—or herself—so seriously.

"Not everybody really cares about what you're doing or how you look," Wallis said. "Everybody's so involved with their own life, so you can't hold them to your standards. Just be all of you, and don't let what you think other people are looking at or wondering [get to you]. Just don't. Be you."

Breathe in now playing in theaters and available via digital and On Demand.

And as you're mulling Wallis' wise words, keep reading to see what came next for more child actors who made a splash in Oscar-nominated movies:

Alan Kim

Roman Griffin Davis

Archie Yates

Jacob Tremblay

Quvenzhané Wallis

Hailee Steinfeld

Saoirse Ronan

Abigail Breslin

Keisha Castle-Hughes

Freddie Highmore

Jonathan Lipnicki

Dakota Fanning

Haley Joel Osment

Anna Paquin

Justin Henry

Jodie Foster

Tatum O'Neal