I’m one of those rare humans who knew what they wanted to do from a very young age.
I remember being in the bathroom at my grandparents’ house (too much information?) aged five or six. I believed in reincarnation (probably still do) and remember thinking to myself: huh… maybe, in my next life, I’ll be an actor.
And then suddenly a light bulb went off… maybe, I could do it in THIS life instead!
I’ve basically never looked back.
The first stage I ever performed on was at the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal (now the Segal Centre) as a robot in a candy factory. It was a play that we wrote with our director Nick—my early childhood memories are impeccably detailed— as part of their arts summer camp program.
I even remember the smell of the Saidye as I walked in the doors. And, from my memory of pre-COVID programming, the building still has that smell. It brings me back to that feeling of joy, knowing I’d be spending the summer learning drama, art, photography and other fun multimedia disciplines. I was in arts heaven!
Throughout my childhood, I was also actively involved in the youth theatre program at my synagogue, Beth Tikvah. I even kept the playbills—for your entertainment:
D’awww, aren’t I cute. Also, I distinctly remember being annoyed when the program was printed and someone had added the word “me” to “Congratz to cast & crew.” (And now the 28-year-old me is showing it to you. Oops.)
While other kids listened to the Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls in kindergarten, or Avril Lavigne by Grade 5, I was belting along to The Sound of Music, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and A Chorus Line.
If the playbill excerpt didn’t give you a clue, I was a theatre nerd, complete with glasses and braces which increased my nerdiness—but probably not my popularity.
My school wasn’t fancy enough to have a drama department, so after growing out of Beth Tikvah plays, I outsourced to a general acting studio called Pegasus Performing Arts.
And when I finally made it to John Abbott College for my first day of the Professional Theatre program, I was in awe of the diversity on campus. I remember feeling like I was on some American teen high school TV show—the kind with jocks, nerds, cliques and all that. Jewish private school was great, but this was a whole other world.
But to give you context of how small my world was, I was the only one from my high school graduating class to go into theatre, and one of few to pursue the arts. Most of my peers were off to Dawson College to study science, medicine, communications or business. All the power to you, but the idea of a 9-to-5 sounds like my personal hell. (For the record, I don’t believe in hell.)
I graduated Abbott in 2013, spent a year studying in New York City and then have been at it ever since.
Being a professional actor also means having to repeatedly field certain questions:
Have I seen you in anything?
No, you probably haven’t, unless you’re one of the few under age 65 who goes to live theatre.
I had a small role on Riverdale, too, but I’m wearing a mask.
Ever hear of Motherland: Fort Salem? I have two lines on that…
But, if you listen to the radio, you’ve probably heard me as the voice of many ads. (That’s YOU?! Indeed, stranger.)
I also do a lot of voice acting for video games. (Which ones?) Do you play a lot of really niche independent games…? Those are the ones I have the largest roles in—such as Catalyst in Tuque Games’ Livelock. (You can watch the trailer below.) I also worked on Assassin’s Creed. (Whoa!) My voice didn’t make it into the game though, but I worked on it for a year as a Hebrew translator! (Whaaaat!?) Long story. I’m thanked in the credits though!
What’s your favourite type of acting?
What I’m thinking: Would you ask a doctor, “What’s your favourite procedure?”
What I say: I really like all kinds. I primarily work in theatre and voiceover, though theatre is scarce these days because of the pandemic, and I just starting breaking into bigger projects on film and TV.
Do you want to be on Broadway?
What I’m thinking: Doesn’t everyone? I can’t just snap my fingers though. Sadly my job doesn’t work like a normal one. I can’t say: hey universe, I’ve been doing great work! Do you think I can get a promotion? My job involves a lot of luck, nepotism… and waiting around.
What I say: That would be cool.
Have you met a lot of famous people?
I’ve met quite a few, yeah, only without the glamour. I met many celebrities while I worked as a background actor (otherwise known as an “extra”) and stand-in (basically a pawn moved around to all of the spots the actor will move to, so they can set up the lights and other technical equipment while the real actor is off getting their hair did). (Who?) Jennifer Lawrence, Anna Kendrick… Oh! I’m randomly on Jessica Biel’s Instagram by total fluke, but that’s a whole other story. (Can you find me? It’s like Where’s Waldo? without the stripes.)
There were definitely periods before I started booking consistently where I was asked, “Are you going to go back to school, or… ” But there was never a Plan B for me and luckily acting has been working out, despite the ups and downs of the industry. And I accidentally became a journalist in the process—so, hey, life has a way of working out.
Book recommendation of the week: Tell me How This Ends Well by David Samuel Levinson
It takes a lot for me to get into fiction, but this one had me super engaged—so take note, friends!
Tell Me How This Ends Well by David Samuel Levison is a darkly comic novel about three siblings who gather for Passover, with the intended plot to kill their selfish and manipulative father, so their sick mother can enjoy her last few months on Earth in peace. (I warned you it was dark.)
What really shook me about this book was the setting: an imagined 2022—five years after its publication—where Israel is no longer a state and millions of Israeli refugees are being shipped off to the United States. This causes a massive spike in antisemitism because, lo and behold, the gentiles don’t love this. Shocker.
It was honestly quite unsettling, considering the events of the last couple of years and how the non-Jewish world attacked the community for the events taking place in the Middle East, otherwise known as plain and simple antisemitism.
The book is told in third person, but is separated into sections, where the narrator focuses on a different character’s perspective: the eldest of the grown-up children, Moses “Mo” Jacobson, a cop-out Hollywood actor who has resorted to exploiting his family’s shenanigans on a reality TV show to gain some exposure, the middle child; Edith Jacobson, an ethics professor in Atlanta with an ethically questionable personal life; and the youngest, Jacob Jacobson, a gay playwright living in Germany with his non-Jewish German boyfriend, much to the dismay of his family. There’s also a brief except from the perspective of their mother, who’s suffering from lung cancer.
I won’t give away too much, but if you enjoy dark comedy with gobs of Yiddishkeit, this one’s a page-turner!
Ilana Zackon can be reached at ilanawritesthings[@]gmail.com and found on Facebook and Instagram.
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