Keeping her feet on the ground

Darleene Barrientos

At 11, Tinashe Kachingwe has kept some powerful company. She has

joked around with Tom Hanks, rubbed elbows with Penelope Cruz and

chatted with Whoopi Goldberg.

That’s because Tinashe, a Monte Vista Elementary School

sixth-grade student, is a bona-fide actress and model, with several

movies, modeling gigs and a Sears’ Christmas commercial under her

belt.

But such presence has not inflated the petite, curly-haired

actress’ ego.

“I got my first fan mail,” Tinashe gushed Saturday, referring to

the letter she received, postmarked from Iowa.

Tinashe got her first modeling gig at 4, after accompanying her

father, Michael, into his agency’s office.

“My dad is an actor,” Tinashe said. “The agency thought I was

really cute.”

A lot has happened since Tinashe’s first modeling job for that

print advertisement. Since then, she’s appeared in movies like “Call

Me Claus,” with Whoopi Goldberg; “Masked and Anonymous,” with several

stars including Bob Dylan and Jessica Lange; “Cora Unashamed,” with

CCH Pounder; and “Time Out.” Her most recent jobs included Sears’

Christmas commercial and working as a motion capture model for the

movie “The Polar Express.”

“I played the girl in the pink nightgown. I got to work with Tom

Hanks. He was really funny and made things really fun. I filmed it in

fourth grade,” she said.

With everything his daughter is involved with, Michael Kachingwe

is glad he isn’t the one in his daughter’s shoes.

“It’s amazing how well she can do with how much she does. It’s a

tribute to how focused she is,” he said.

Monte Vista Principal Sharon Popolo said she was excited to hear

Tinashe was in “Polar Express” and looked for her name in the

credits.

“And she told me, ‘Mrs. Popolo, my name is all the way at the

end,’ ” Popolo said, laughing.

Acting is fun, but Tinashe still enjoys being a student and the

school’s student government president. She ultimately aspires to be a

singer, and by all accounts, she is a singer Alicia Keys and

Christina Aguilera should watch out for -- reviews of “Masked and

Anonymous” say she “steals the show with her a cappella performance

of Dylan’s classic ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’.’ ”

“I want to keep being a singer and an actress, but I don’t want to

be famous because I’m too young,” she said.