At 25 years old, Katie Boland has already emerged as a successful and multi-dimensional talent.

With acting credits piling up and her digital projects getting deals, Boland is poised for success, whatever the medium.

Developing both sides of her career in equal measure was a strategic decision, she explains.

As an actress, she’s had roles in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, as well as Michael Goldbach’s Daydream Nation and Robert Cuffley’s Ferocious.

On the digital side, she produces, writes and stars in the short web series Long Story Short, which is distributed by Shaftesbury Films and airs on international online streaming site KoldCast TV.

Last year, she produced the feature film Looking is the Original Sin with Gail Harvey, her mother. This year, Boland will be seen in two Canadian feature films, Jeremy LaLonde’s Sex After Kids and Bruce LaBruce’s Gerontophilia, the latter of which will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice International Film Festival.

“I only saw myself as an actress, and then around when I turned 20 I realized that having a career as an actress, regardless of how rewarding it was, was in some ways limited, because it’s dependant on other people hiring you,” she says. “I wanted to find a way around that and I wanted to find something else that I could do that I got to decide when I did it.”

Of the upcoming Gerontophilia, Boland describes the film as one of the more challenging projects she’s worked on recently.

“It was not necessarily an easy shoot; there wasn’t a lot of money, it was in Montreal and Bruce and I were pretty much the only people that weren’t francophone,” Boland says of her experience on the set.

But, she adds, working with LaBruce made the shoot a more comfortable experience.

“He was actually the most relaxed director I’ve ever worked with,” she recalls. “He was very succinct but he didn’t have a very domineering presence on set. You sort of felt like you could try what you wanted and he would guide you.”

Look for Boland’s work as well on Reign, a period drama airing on CTV Two this fall about a young Mary Queen of Scots.

Check back here as we continue to unveil this year’s 10 to Watch over the next several days.