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Look for actress Katie Chang around New York City this fall.
Or better yet, don’t.
The 18-year-old star of Friday’s “The Bling Ring” is headed to Columbia University, and she’d like to stay anonymous — or as anonymous as possible when you’re headlining the buzzy new film from director Sofia Coppola.
“I do worry about getting recognized, but I might be giving myself too much credit for worrying about that,” newcomer Chang says. “I hope they don’t, because the times I got questioned about the movie in [high] school over the past year have been uncomfortable, not because people have been mean. The questions just get invasive, I guess, and the level of attention is not something I’m used to and hopefully never will be.”
She’s been rudely quizzed by fellow students about how much she earned on the movie. But the one question she gets asked over and over again is what her “Bling Ring” co-star Emma Watson is like.
The mania Chang sees in her classmates is deliciously ironic considering the subject matter of “The Bling Ring.” The movie is based on the true story of a group of materialistic and celebrity-obsessed LA teens who rob the houses of Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Orlando Bloom and other boldface names.
The gang used the Web and gossip sites to determine when the celebrities would be out of town. From there, it was just a matter of climbing security fences, finding an unlocked window and helping themselves to money, Louboutins and designer clothing.
Now Chang, like it or not, is a part of that image-obsessed and gossip-driven Hollywood world. Google her name, and headlines such as “Katie Chang wears Jill Stuart” are likely to appear.
The young actress is determined not to let show business change her. Or worse, turn her into Amanda Bynes.
“I guess the person that I am now, I’m relatively proud of,” Chang says. “As a teenage girl, that’s relatively hard to say. I don’t want to lose that sense of pride, the things I believe in and what I want to do with my life. I really hope I don’t wake up one day and say, ‘Oh, my God. What happened to that part of me?’ ”
Chang grew up and currently lives in Chicago with what she says is a “typical Midwestern family.” She was studying at the city’s Actors Training Center when her manager spotted a casting notice for an unnamed film. Chang sent in an audition tape talking about her love of paleontology. That landed her an in-person audition, then the part.
Chang hadn’t originally planned on going to Columbia. While attending a pre-college program at Brown a couple summers ago, she and friend took the train to NYC for the weekend.
“For three days, we just walked around the city and explored places we’d always dreamed of seeing,” Chang says. That included the uptown school; both fell in love with it.
Chang plans to study creative writing. In her free time, she’s excited to visit the Met, one of her “favorite places in the world,” and most of all, to ride the subway.
Oh, Katie. That’ll wear off quick.
She admits her parents are a bit worried about her move to Gotham.
“They were talking about signing me up for a self-defense class, which is good, because I’m incredibly weak and wouldn’t be able to defend myself,” she says.
Besides learning to punch, she plans to continue acting while at Columbia. She’s already completed another film, “A Birder’s Guide to Everything,” which co-stars Ben Kingsley and got strong reviews at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Now she’s reading scripts, going on auditions and dreaming of making it big. Just not so big that someone feels like breaking into her house.
reed.tucker@nypost.com