Ready for a change

Gemini Award-winner Yanna McIntosh reflects on diversity in onscreen roles

BY: Pamella Bailey

“I LOVE A good script,” says the accomplished Yanna McIntosh, seated in the lounge of the Young People’s Theatre in the historic Distillery District. “The kind where you don’t know what the characters are going to say until you flip the page.”

It’s a few hours before her last performance as Mary Queen of Scots in Soulpepper’s Mary Stuart, one of several non-traditional leading roles McIntosh has played onstage in her successful 16-year career.

Always in demand onstage, McIntosh starred in The Syringa Tree, a one-woman show set in South Africa during the turbulent years of apartheid. The story, told mainly through the eyes of a six-year-old white girl, required the actress to become multiple characters both black and white. In David Hare’s Skylight, she played the lead role of Kyra, the love interest of a white male, a role that won her a Dora Award. Although known for her formidable and emotionally intelligent performances onstage, her success achieving significant roles in television has proven to be a challenge, with casting directors reluctant to cast against colour expectations of a script.

“There was a period in my career when I couldn’t hope to attain those top roles,” says McIntosh. “It was early on, so it could have had to do with experience. But there was also a part of it that had to do with we’re not telling that story.”

For McIntosh, her first real break into television came with her role as Jenni Hernandez, a hairdresser in CBC’s Riverdale, a Canadian prime time soap opera which ran for three seasons. She would later play a recurring role as defense lawyer Zona Robinson in the CBC series This is Wonderland. Although McIntosh enjoyed the role she was somewhat frustrated that her character wasn’t more involved in the story.

While theatre has broken much ground in the area of non-traditional casting for significant roles, television still lags behind. “The boundaries in theatre have been somewhat easier to break down. So much about coming to theatre is about suspending disbelief, whereas in television and film people want to see what they perceive as reality,” says McIntosh. “Now, the reality [they see] may have nothing to do with actual reality. But it’s the reality the powers that be think should be reflected.”

With new writers coming on the scene, progress is being made. Shows such as ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, feature an integrated cast of characters, including an African American chief of surgery. The series reflects diversity in positions of power and in relationships. Shonda Rhimes, a black writer and the creator of the series, who also serves as executive producer, has been quoted as saying she casts characters with no specific casting intentions, looking for the best person for the part, regardless of colour.

McIntosh applauds this approach. “If you look at the streets of Toronto, New York, or L.A., people are coupled in all kinds of pairs, shapes and sizes, so why are we so afraid to say that is actual reality? Let’s see that represented on television.”

It’s certainly happening with McIntosh’s latest on screen role as Karen, in The Weight, an eight-part onehour drama series developed with Canada’s Movie Central and The Movie Network, slated to air in fall 2008.

Karen is the wife of Max, played by Ron White (Screamers, Tagged, The Johnathan Wamback Story), a white cop who met Karen while investigating the murder of her late husband who was an activist in the community. Karen lives in his home with her two kids where she struggles to make the relationship work.

“I am intrigued by the role of Karen,” says McIntosh. “It’s a very volatile relationship. I found myself wondering about their back story and how they got together. She’s got a lot of silence that’s very potent. And when she does speak there is also power and depth there.”

McIntosh is beginning to see boundaries dissolve that have existed for a while as television catches up to its diverse viewing audience. Her recent Gemini Award for Best Actress in a supporting role for CTV’s Doomstown speaks to her dedication to the craft.

“Either because I stayed around or because I did some good work that people respect, I’m starting to see more roles open up for me. There are still challenges to overcome, but I am a bit more hopeful. The world will be a different place for some of the young actors on their way up.”