At age 5, Nazie (her nickname), had to fib about her age to audition for her very first acting job--the starring role in
Re della terra selvaggia (2012) because the minimum age to be considered was six. She eventually beat out some 4,000 other local kids to play Hushpuppy--the indomitable child prodigy and survivalist who lives with her dying father in the backwoods bayou squalor of Louisiana. Director
Benh Zeitlin told 'The Daily Beast' that when he auditioned Nazie, he immediately realized he'd discovered what he was looking for, and changed the 'Beasts' script to accommodate her strong-willed personality.
