Sweet success: Rising Canadian star shines in sweeping miniseries and TIFF film

TORONTO – Career-wise, it’s been a pretty spectacular week for Regina-raised actress Tatiana Maslany.

Her latest TV project, the sweeping medieval miniseries “World Without End,” premiered a few days ago. And her new big-screen project, “Picture Day,” screens this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival.

But despite such heady professional success, the 26-year-old rising star still manages to sound infinitely modest, gushing recently about the movie she’s been shooting in Sudbury, Ont., with screen legend Richard Dreyfuss.

“He’s the most genuine, awesome person,” Maslany said during a telephone interview from her trailer on the northern Ontario set of the Jason Priestley-directed “Cas & Dylan.”

“I’m nobody, you know what I mean? He took a chance and it’s exciting. I’m completely grateful. Im just soaking it in trying to learn as much as possible.”

“Nobody” indeed.

Despite her tender age, Maslany has already been acting professionally for about a decade, honing her chops with parts on TV shows including “Being Erica” and “Heartland.” She drew international headlines at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival when she was given a breakout performance award for her role in “Grown Up Movie Star.”

In “Picture Day,” she stars as Claire, an aimless teen who is repeating her final year of high school (what she calls “a victory lap”) as she grapples with a troubled home life and pursues a relationship with a local musician.

Maslany says she was drawn to the script from Kate Melville, and thrilled by the first-time director’s methods.

A year before filming began, Maslany and co-star Spencer Van Wyck (“Degrassi: The Next Generation”) got to shoot some “sample scenes” so they could have an idea of what the final project might be like.

And before the actual shoot, they spent a week rehearsing, which Maslany calls a “complete luxury.”

“It was really fun, the process was amazing. … Kate approached me with this process that was kind of an actor’s dream,” said Maslany, adding the focus was on “exploring, improvising and playing.”

The shoot for “Picture Day” was sandwiched around Maslany’s trips to Budapest to film “World Without End,” which is based on the Ken Follett novel and co-stars Cynthia Nixon and Miranda Richardson.

It’s perhaps a testament to Maslany’s abilities that she has a big epic miniseries and a small, indie film premiering the same week.

“You find the freedom and the creativity in both of them,” she said of the two projects. “It’s a total challenge to work on a project that’s as big as ‘World Without End’ was. There’s so many actors … scenery, epic sets. …The budget is ridiculous. And then you work on ‘Picture Day’ and it feels like a small family.”

As for what the Toronto fest can do for the movie, well, her Sundance experience may provide a hint.

“Sundance was a complete surprise to me. The whole thing — getting out there with this small movie we made that at the time felt so intimate and just a movie that we loved as a cast and crew,” she said.

“To have it seen by such an international film audience was incredible because it just gave us this life.”

The Toronto International Film Festival runs until Sept. 16.