GIRL WE HEART: TATIANA MASLANY
Even though Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany was nominated for a Golden Globe, she still manages to bum and bike around Toronto, where she lives and works, pretty much incognito. “I don’t know if I necessarily look like myself on television,” she muses. This ability to fly under the radar is even more unexpected considering her gig on the BBC America hit requires her to play not only one character, but its eight (and counting) clones. Still, laughs Maslany, “I can always kind of be anonymous.”
Before her breakout moment in the 2010 Sundance film Grown Up Movie Star, Maslany cut her teeth on improv, which has served her well in this peculiar spin on science fiction. “I’m not a huge sci-fi aficionado, but what I really liked is that [Orphan Black] felt more like a character piece, with a unique tone and really specific characters,” she explains. (In any given episode, Maslany could be conjuring up a trash-talking con woman, a wine-swilling housewife, or a borderline mad scientist.) “They’re all a part of me or people I know and love.”
Growing up in Regina, Saskatchewan, she recalls, “My brothers and I would force our parents to sit down and watch us perform dances or little pieces of theater for them in our living room. But I didn’t have aspirations to do this or that. I just enjoyed it, and [my acting career] happened pretty organically. It’s been such a huge part of my personality for the longest time, and a lot of my interests come back to acting in some way or another, whether it’s reading books about it or studying films.”
That focus has earned her raves for Orphan Black, including a Critic’s Choice Television Award, a TCA Award, and later, the Golden Globe nod in the same category as seasoned heavyweights like Julianna Margulies and Robin Wright. “It still doesn’t feel like it happened,” says Maslany, incredulous even three months later, who learned of her nomination through Twitter. At heart, she remains a hometown girl. As for her most Canadian character traits? “The self-deprecating thing,” she admits. “I find it really difficult to talk about myself, because I don’t know what to say and I don’t think anything’s really interesting. And the ability to withstand minus-50-degree weather! I swear by long underwear.”