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Meet
Cara Pifko |
The
star of This
is Wonderland talks about life as a child
actor, Jennifer Beals and her video game obsession |
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BY
ROBERT BALLANTYNE
POSTED APRIL 30, 2005
Cara
Pifko looks bad. She has bruises and scratches on her face, like
she’s been in a fight and lost.
So how do you politely bring this up during an interview?
"It’s okay," Pifko says cheerily, anticipating the
question. "I know I look terrible."
Of course, it's all make-up for an episode of This is Wonderland.
In the penultimate episode, a bi-polar man outside a store assaults
Pifko's character Alice De Raey. It's an intense on-screen moment,
one that you probably wouldn't anticipate being performed by a former
child actor from Sharon, Lois & Bram's Elephant Show.
"The Elephant Show was a blast," the now 29-year-old
actress reflects. "I came into the business at a young age,
but I think [acting] was always in me. I have a memory of doing
ballet when I was four. I did a dance with the toys to bring them
to life. I remember that experience very clearly; in my memory,
even though it was a small production, I thought we were doing Swan
Lake. I think that's when the acting bug bit... That's when
the poison seeped in."
Despite her increasing profile as an actress, Pifko says she still
gets mistaken for Flashdance's Jennifer Beals. "I get
it about once a week. Everybody has a person they look like. My
brother gets Kevin Spacey and I get Jennifer Beals."
To reward herself after moments like that, Pifko and her husband
— writer and director Gareth Bennett — have taken to
renovating their gaming den "to make it look like a movie theatre."
They’re both huge video game enthusiasts and own almost every
gaming system imaginable.
"My favourite game is Fable," she says. "I
beat it, but I'm still playing it. When I heard there's like 15
hours of extra things to play after you finish it, my heart started
racing. I got so excited!
"Oh, I know, I'm such a nerd," she laughs.
Read
more about Cara and This is Wonderland in Popjournalism issue
#2 available at Chapters/Indigo and other independent bookstores
nationwide |
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