Sarah Gadon‘s 10,000 hours to overnight success last year started out in childhood dance classes.

“That’s certainly where my training began as an artist,” says Gadon, who recently starred in David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis and A Dangerous Method theatrical dramas.

Gadon even trained at the National Ballet School of Canada, before eventually doing episode TV acting over summers when off from school. “I would book a few jobs throughout the summertime, and that’s kind of what I did throughout elementary school and high school,”she recounts.

Despite her busy acting schedule, which includes international travel to shoots like the TV series World Without End and Denis Villeneuve’s film An Enemy, which was shot in Canada and Spain, Gadon continues her university education as a part-time University of Toronto film studies student. “It’s really been an asset to me as a young actor because I feel like sometimes the industry can be so tough and so competitive and so dollar-driven, that it’s easy to get disillusioned when you are coming up,” she insists.

The Canadian actress also has the luxury of being selective in her scripts and acting gigs, which she recommends to those following in her steps.”I don’t think it necessarily matters what stage you’re at in your career, you should be making the kinds of films you want to make,” she advises.

Gadon reads indie and commercial film scripts, not caring too much about where the financing comes from. What’s important is the character and does she see herself filling its skin.

“Sometimes I end up not auditioning for a lot of work and sometimes I end up campaigning for things that I probably don’t have a shot at booking, but I think every artist has to fight for what they want out of their body of work,” Gadon says.

And the world exposure the Canadian actress received from co-starring in Cronenberg’s latest films is doing wonders for her career. “I did [A Dangerous Method] with a British accent and so it got me a lot of exposure in the U.K., and I’m going to be there in September doing a British film,” Gadon says, pointing to starring alongside Tom Wilkinson and Matthew Goode in Belle, directed by Amma Asante.