Helen Shaver may be better known as an actor than a director, but it is her directing talent that’s being lauded this year with a Gemini nod for an episode (‘Simon Says’) of The Outer Limits.

Along with other episodes of The Outer Limits, Shaver’s other directing credits include episodes of Judging Amy, Beggars and Choosers and The Associates. The Outer Limits, which investigates paranormal and psychic phenomena, is now running in syndication and recently wrapped season seven.

Her first directorial feature film was 1998’s Summer’s End with James Earl Jones, produced for Showtime. The film, about the friendship between a man and a boy, won First Prize at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival and a daytime Emmy for outstanding directing in a children’s special.

Shaver’s career truly began with her role in the 1978 Robert Lantos-produced In Praise of Older Women. Among her other high-profile roles were parts in The Osterman Weekend, Allan King’s 1977 Who Has Seen the Wind, The Color of Money (opposite Paul Newman) and her award-winning turn in Desert Hearts. In the much-talked about Desert Hearts she played a university professor in the fifties who goes to Reno to file for divorce and meets a woman with whom she falls in love. She has won best supporting actor Genies for both Who Has Seen the Wind and In Praise of Older Women.

Shaver has also increasingly taken on risky roles. Last year, she won a best supporting actress Genie for her part as a junkie prostitute on Vancouver’s Eastside in We All Fall Down. That role has been followed up by a turn as a transsexual in The Education of Max Bickford, the upcoming Richard Dreyfuss series on CBS.