Starting From Scratch
By Sally Cole / The Guardian
Friday, March 11, 2005

Martha MacIsaac is back acting again. Three years after Emily of New Moon, the P.E.I. actress is busy with television guest spots, animation work and an upcoming play in Toronto. She also works as a receptionist for a talent agency.

Martha MacIsaac knows the ups and downs of acting. For four years she was the star of popular CBC television series Emily of New Moon.

"By the time I was 11, I had lucked out . . . What were the chances of doing a film series on P.E.I.? They were four really great years," says the Charlottetown native who is now 20.

Set in the 1890s, Emily of New Moon tells the story of a free-spirited girl orphaned at the age of 11 whose vivid imagination and passion to write put her in conflict with her strict adoptive family.

Shot entirely against the breathtaking beauty of the sweeping coastline and rolling hills of P.E.I., the series featured Sheila McCarthy, Stephen McHattie, Susan Clark, Normand Bissonnette, Maury Chaykin, Chip Chuipka, Peter Donaldson, Richard Donat, Adam Frost, Martha Henry, William Hutt, Kris Lemche, Michael Moriarty, John Neville, Joan Orenstein, Leni Parker, Shawn Roberts, Linda Thorson and guest stars like Phyllis Dillar.

After the filming for the 46 episodes was over and the last glowing ember of the wrap party had faded, MacIsaac took some time off before continuing along on her chosen career path.

Eventually, she moved to Toronto.

"But when you’re a child actor and you start off starring in your own television show and then you take three years off to finish your schooling, it’s like starting all over again," she says.

Employment was hard to find.

"Had I moved here right after I finished Emily of New Moon, who knows what might have happened? I might have gotten work right away, or maybe not," she said, during a telephone interview.

There were other reasons as well.

"For the first year that I was living up here I had braces and in this type of business, that’s not good. You can’t get work when you have braces on . . . So I’m starting from scratch again. I have to pay my dues. I totally understand that, and that’s totally fine. So I’m starting over," she says.

Then other things started to happen in Toronto that had nothing to do with her at all.

"The SARS scare came during the second summer that I was here. Then (California) Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger started giving production companies tax writeoffs to film in California. As a result, the Canadian film business is a lot slower than it has ever been before," she says.

But lately things have started to get better.

"I’ve been working solid (in acting) since October and I’m loving it. I’m meeting such great people and having such an amazing time," she says.

MacIsaac has also done some guest spots, including one for Renegade Press.com. Filmed in Regina, it airs on APTN.

It’s a dramatic, edgy series that chronicles the adventures of a group of multicultural inner city teenagers that are bound by a commitment to investigate and report on the issues and events that face them and their friends.

"The episode is about school hazings and I was being hazed at school.

"It’s like a DeGrassi show. They deal with the same type of topics that teens go through," she says.

MacIsaac also made a guest appearance on Complete Freaks of Nature. It will be aired on the family channel.

"It’s about a character named Sadie. She loves nature and everything that has to do with nature," she says.

In the episode she plays a girl with a gigantic nose.

"The whole point was that I looked like this animal in Australia called the long-nose bandicoot. Sadie writes a paper on it comparing me to this animal and someone gets a hold of it and puts it up all over the school."

She said the best part was getting to wear a prosthetic nose, which took about an hour and a half to put it on.

"When it airs, it will be interesting to see if anyone will recognize me, because it’s definitely not my nose," she says with a laugh.

MacIsaac also acted in I Do, They Don’t, ABC’s Family Movie of the Week.

"It’s about two widowed parents who after one weekend in Las Vegas decide to get married. They each have four kids who have never met each other," she says.

The movie deals with how the parents introduce the children to each other. For MacIsaac, the best part was playing a fun character.

"I play the 14-year-old daughter Moira, who hates everybody and hates everything . . . I wore a big nose ring and I had orange, red and blue hair extensions in which were so much fun," she says.

In addition, MacIsaac starts rehearsals in June for an undisclosed play at the Soul Pepper Theatre in Toronto that will star some major Canadian actors.

"I’m also doing the English dubbing for Slam Dunk 100 episodes of an animation from Japan, for DVD. That won’t be ready for a long time. We’re only on number 30," she says.

On top of everything else MacIsaac works as a receptionist at her talent agency AMI.

"My job is answering the phones, calling people up and telling them about auditions and doing all the stuff that everybody else doesn’t want to do . . . It’s perfect because I can do (my own) auditions and other things.

"It’s fun. I like it and I get along with everybody else," she says.

Reflecting on her life MacIsaac credits her parents, Bruce and Irene MacIsaac, of Charlottetown, for their continuing love and encouragement.

"I don’t think that they ever expected that I would, by the age of 11, luck out and start doing what I was doing, then," she says.

The MacIsaacs are wise in other ways too she says.

"My parents have been really good at helping me to save money and I haven’t gone on any crazy spending binges, so I still have a large part of the money that I received from Emily," she says.

In spite of everything, her family and friends are still number one.

"I get home more then most people who live away. I’m home probably six times a year, although with this play I probably won’t be home now until my sister’s wedding in September," she says.

MacIsaac also stays in touch with her best friend, Jane Hennessey, in Charlottetown, and actor Sheila McCarthy in Toronto.

"Sheila is one of my best friends. I go and stay with her all the time. Her family is like my second family, here. They’ve been amazing to me over the last few years."

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