Yani Gellman

Twelve years ago, Yani Gellman made his stage debut, appearing in the chorus of a production of Hello Dolly at summer camp. Through this experience, Gellman ‘made a lot of friends’ and began to dream of life as an actor.

Starting on his career path, Gellman attended Toronto’s Earl Haig School, specializing in arts, and by grade nine was already landing professional acting roles. ‘I did two episodes of F.R.O.G. for TVOntario, then I auditioned for the [Global Television MOW] Justice and got a small part in that,’ he says.

The young actor’s early success showed him acting was, indeed, a ‘viable career path,’ and one that would be worth his time and effort pursuing. ‘Suddenly I was a professional,’ he says.

Gellman is most proud of his acting work in the TNT cable feature Boss of Bosses, where he played ‘Chazz Palminteri’s [character] as a kid.’ Says the actor: ‘It had always been my dream since I got into acting to be in a Mafia movie – the same way you see guys like De Niro and Pacino. It was a big break for me.’

In fact, the Boss of Bosses job helped land the actor his first lead – the role of Mederic in the Tapestry Films/ Buffalo Gal Pictures MOW Children Of My Heart.

Currently finishing a degree in political science and philosophy at the University of Toronto, the 22-year-old Gellman hopes to move into acting full time after graduating.

‘I would love to continue doing films and doing some theatre,’ he says.

Gellman has already racked up 14 film and television credits. Most recently he was cast as Chris, ‘the first love of Matthew Shepard,’ in the Alliance Atlantis TV movie The Matthew Shepard Story for NBC. -Dave Lazar

Sabrina Grdevich

Sabrina Grdevich may not be a household name yet, but by summer’s end a huge portion of the global population will be familiar with her work.

Grdevich, 29, is appearing in Steven Spielberg’s soon-to-be-released A.I.: Artificial Intelligence from DreamWorks, playing a robot in the film’s first scene.

‘I really don’t even know how it happened,’ says Grdevich. ‘I had met the casting director a couple of years ago in New York and we got along really well and she showed [Spielberg] my tape.’

Grdevich, a native of Brampton, ON, says she always wanted to be an actor. After attending Ryerson Polytechnic University’s theatre school, she landed a part in Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore at the Stratford Festival.

That summer was a busy one for the hungry young actor. ‘I understudied about 22 people in my journeyman season, which is unheard of,’ she says. ‘It was a nightmare, but it paid off because the next season I was Ophelia in Hamlet.’

From the stage, Grdevich moved on to the big and small screens. Her credits include feature films Joe’s So Mean to Josephine and Cold Feet, TV series Traders and Once a Thief and MOWs Black and Blue, Little Criminals and Milgaard, for which she won the 1999 best supporting actress Gemini.

Currently living in New York City, Grdevich continues to ply her craft north of the 49th. She played the title role in Carl Bessai’s Lola, which shot earlier this year in Vancouver. She is hopeful the film will be ready to hit the film festival circuit this fall.

Also due out in the near future is a film she shot with director Andrew Curri called Mile Zero, an independent production also shot in Vancouver. She says her last day on the set of Mile Zero was perhaps the most significant.

‘I was actually on set and had just finished my last shot when I got the Spielberg call [for A.I.],’ says Grdevich. ‘It was really weird to be water-bused in from wherever to be in this low-budget film and to have a town car pick me up the next day.’

She says shooting A.I. and working with Spielberg was a very positive experience and reinforced her love of the craft.

‘What I really found impressive about [Spielberg] was even though he was sitting there smoking a stogie, directing this monster of a scene, he really went moment to moment to moment. In a medium where you can jump around and the camera is king, it was really lovely to see how sensitive and how available he was to the actors and what they were doing.’ -Dustin Dinoff

Chandra West

As a toddler, Chandra West announced her intentions to be an actor and dancer when she grew up. She has since made good on her proclamation.

West began studying ballet at age five and dancing seemed to be ‘her thing.’ That is, until she attended a summer theatre enrichment program at Oxford University when she was 17 and realized acting would be her life. When the Edmonton native returned to Canada, she immediately enrolled in theatre school at Concordia University in Montreal.

During a summer holiday, West found an agency in Toronto ready to exploit her talents. That fall, she started work on the feature True Confections from director Gail Singer, leaving behind university to pursue her acting career full time. Things ‘snowballed’ from there.

Now living in Los Angeles, West has appeared in several television series in leading, recurring and guest roles. Series credits include Road to Avonlea, Highlander, Jack & Jill and the pilot of current CBS hit CSI. Among her MOW and miniseries work is The Seventies, Season of Love and John N. Smith’s Revenge of the Land, which she is particularly proud of.

Feature work includes The Perfect Son, No Contest and the yet-to-be-released The Salton Sea, starring opposite Val Kilmer. She is also among the stars of The First $20 Million is Always The Hardest, directed by Mick Jackson and scheduled for release next year.

West says perseverance has put her in the position she is now enjoying – that of a working actor.

‘I think all actors walk a fine line of being really arrogant and really insecure at the same time, but you just really have to want it,’ she says. ‘There are a lot of hard professions out there and acting is definitely one. I think if it is the kind of thing where you say to yourself, ‘This is something I have to do,’ that’s enough to get you through the rough patches.’

Although she has no immediate plans to branch out into writing, directing or producing, she never says never.

‘You see all these people who start up their own production companies and start producing because of a lack of material, just trying to get their own stuff made, and that makes a lot of sense to me,’ says West. ‘I think if you got to a place in your career where you could do that, that is something that would be appealing at some point. Just to have that control creatively over what you’re doing would be great. We’ll see.’ -Dustin Dinoff