Chantal Kreviazuk Has Great Hair For A Non-Actress

09/08/06 6:00pm

by Leah Collins (CHARTattack)

Chantal Kreviazuk may be starring in a film at this year's Toronto International Film Festival, but, please don't call her an actress.

"I delivered the piece," explains Kreviazuk, giggling over her choice of words. "I'm not an actor.

"I'm not anything. Sometimes I don't even think I'm a singer. I feel like I'm the delivery girl. What I fear is that someone would see it and say that 'she's acting,' because the piece is so personal to me."

The piece in question is Pretty Broken, an 11-minute short that the erstwhile musician wrote and "delivered." In it, Kreviazuk plays Patient #48273, a young woman reflecting on her mental illness. The script, says Kreviazuk, came very much out of her own close experience with loved ones suffering from similar disorders.

"I absorbed a plethora of information in my life, but so much heartache, pain and suffering in my own right, being there for those people, and trying so hard to make sense of it, trying so hard to be a part of a change in that vicious circle for them. So I guess I reached a point and I popped. I had all these things I'd been taking in for so many years and they just poured out."

Some of those emotional themes surface in Kreviazuk's latest record, Ghost Stories, which was released last week. As for the film, it wasn't until Kreviazuk made a new friend in photographer/director Cline Mayo that the project took flight. The two bonded over their mutual relationship with Avril Lavigne — Kreviazuk co-wrote many of her songs and Mayo had shot photos of the young star.

"I told her about something I was going through, and we started writing this piece," Kreviazuk says. "I felt this creative comfort with her, and everything poured out and she was very supportive of it and next thing you know — wham — we have a short little film."

While Kreviazuk's not a complete stranger to the screen (she had a small role in the Canadian flick, Century Hotel, and let's not forget those ubiquitous hair-colour ads), she says that there's only one way you'll catch her in any other coming attractions.

"The director would have to come to me and say, 'Read this, tell me if you feel like you're reading your own words right now.' There's truly something far more authentic about writing your own words and then you being the one who delivers them."

That even goes for when she's acting as a spokeswoman for the latest shade of dark brown hair dye.

"People always wonder, 'What is she thinking?' as far as when I'm dealing with all the hair and makeup and fashion," Kreviazuk says about her commercial deals.

But she had to wonder herself when she arrived on set in Italy to shoot her first hair dye TV spot. The company had brought in spokesmodels from markets all over the world and, as Kreviazuk sat back and watched them run through their lines, the nerves set in.

"I saw all theirs and I was like, 'I can't do that, no way. There's no way.'"

It could have been the makings of an America's Next Top Model-style breakdown. But Kreviazuk knew that the only way that she'd feel comfortable on camera was if she could deliver more genuine dialogue. "So they wrote one for me in which I was talking to my mom on the phone. It's funny because people will see it and they'll be like, 'I don't understand. How did you say that?' And I say, 'Well I guess you don't know that side of me with my mom.'

"And you know, my mother and I will sit on the phone and talk about a nail polish colour and freak out about it. We're very girlie together, my mom and I."

Check out Kreviazuk tossing her newly dyed locks on most TV channels. Pretty Broken premieres at Toronto's Cumberland Theatre on Sunday.

Here are Kreviazuk's tour dates:
November 15 Brampton, Ontario @ Rose Theatre
November 16 London, Ontario @ Convention Centre
November 17 Brantford, Ontario @ Sanderson Centre
November 18 Mississauga, Ontario @ Living Arts Centre
November 22 Chatham, Ontario @ Kiwanis Theatre
November 23 Peterborough, Ontario @ Showplace
November 24 Oakville, Ontario @ Centre For The Performing Arts
November 25 Kitchener, Ontario @ Centre In The Square
November 28 Markham, Ontario @ Theatre For The Performing Arts
November 29 St. Catharines, Ontario @ Brock University Centre For The Arts