Wind Crest held its first red-carpet, Hollywood-style movie premier last month.

AnnaSophia Robb, the star of movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Bridge to Terabithia, recently visited Wind Crest to host a screening of her newest film and spend some time with her grandparents, Jim and Elly Andersen, who live there.

The event was open to residents and employees of Wind Crest, their grandchildren, and members of the community’s priority list (people who have put down a refundable deposit to reserve their place in line for an apartment home).

“It was a really neat thing,” says Jason Atwell, sales director of Wind Crest. “She definitely has a huge following, so it was special for our residents and all of their grandchildren to be able to meet her and get an autograph.”

All in the family

According to AnnaSophia’s grandmother, Hollywood success hasn’t jaded the down-to-earth actress.

“She’s just AnnaSophia to us,” Elly Andersen says. “She lives nearby in Denver so we see her every Sunday after church, but people ask us all the time for her autograph. People see her and when we tell them that she’s our granddaughter, they always look at us funny and say, ‘Yeah, right.’ It’s kind of funny.”

The Andersens have even traveled to join Robb on movie sets. “We went with her to Pinewood Studios in London and joined her on set of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Elly Andersen says. “That was neat, because we even got to meet Johnny Depp.”

Proud grandparents

“She is such a professional,” Mrs. Andersen says of her granddaughter. “She has been in over ten movies. She works hard at what she does, but she doesn’t ever talk about any of her successes, unless someone asks her about it. Really, she’s just an average high school kid wrapped up in her schoolwork.”

And like most proud grandparents, the Andersons say their favorite accomplishment of their granddaughter is her success in school. Mrs. Anderson says her granddaughter earned a perfect 4.0 grade point average during the last school year. “That’s not too bad, considering what she has on her plate,” she says.

Atwell adds, “With AnnaSophia’s hectic schedule, there was some question to whether she was going to be able to make the event at Wind Crest. There was a chance she could have been called out for an audition, so we are very happy she was able to make it.”

Atwell estimates that over a hundred residents’ grandchildren, all fans of Robb, attended the event and waited patiently in line to meet the movie star.

The Robb File

AnnaSophia Robb, a Denver native, made her major acting debut in 2004 starring in a McDonald’s fast-food commercial and a Nickelodeon network sitcom, Josh And Drake.

The following year, Robb made two big-screen appearances with successful adaptations of popular children’s books. She played the lead role of Opal in Because of Winn-Dixie and played the gum-chewing Violet Beauregarde in Tim Burton’s remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp. The latter was a major box office success worldwide and helped escalate Robb’s popularity.

In 2007, Robb received critical acclaim playing the character of Leslie Burke, a modern-day Mary Lennox-type character in Bridge to Terabithia, another major box office success. Robb was also nominated for a Critics Choice award and won a Young Artists award for her work.

In Robb’s newest film, Disney’s The Race to Witch Mountain, Robb stars alongside Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Garry Marshall.