Canadian onscreen and voice actors gathered at Hotel William Gray in Montreal’s Old Port for nominations for the 15th edition of the ACTRA Awards.
Nearly one-third of the 33 nominees hailed from culturally diverse communities.
Montreal actor Tristan Lalla is nominated for his role in the video game “Tales of Kenzera: ZAU.”
“When I did my first video game a couple decades ago, I won’t say how long, most of the characters I was voicing and that I was playing were white,” Lalla said. “And now most of the characters that I voice and that I play look like me on purpose, sound like me on purpose, have my cultural backgrounds on purpose. And so there’s been a definite shift in terms of how rules are created, who’s creating them, and why.
“I do a lot of theatre and so having a theatre background lets the imagination run wild easier. I also have a four-and-a-half-year-old daughter at home, so I’m not allowed to scream at home so I can scream in the booth.”
Alex Rice is an Indigenous actress who played a Sixties Scoop kid in “Meadowlarks.”
“An honour and a blessing to be able to tell our own stories and to see them have it made,” Rice said. “For me to have that role, that was probably the most favourite character that I’ve ever played because it was just so much to her. Her having been scooped, her having grown up abroad, there were so many layers and so many things to put on. Having been in this business for over 30 years, the writing and the level of complexity is something that I had never even expected to find, and wasn’t used to.
“And so with an Indigenous creative, you’re going to get that because we’re so close to the stories. The writer and co-writer and director were Indigenous, and so they wrote it from their own perspective. In fact, Tasha, the director, she herself was a Scoopy, so she had a lot of the inside person. It was a very personal story for her. So the writing, and then to be able to hand that over to me, it was like a gift.”
Lalla, who hails from Montreal says receiving the nomination meant a lot.
“This is my fifth nomination in the ACTRA Awards, fourth time for video game performance. And this game specifically has meant so much to so many people globally. We won a BAFTA for it last year. So I think being recognized by the peers here means the world.”
“I’m most proud of the fact that I’ve heard from a lot of people that I succeeded in coming across as completely devoid of my Indigeneity and the use of the accent and the foreign language was so intact,” added Rice. “And I think I’m most proud of the fact that it was quite a juggling act. There was a lot of things to juggle in this role and I believe I’ve pulled it off very well.”
Winners will find out who won at the Montreal ACTRA Awards on June 12.
