To millions of Canadians, Gabrielle Miller is still Lacey, the quirky coffee shop proprietor from CTV’s long-running sitcom, Corner Gas, despite the fact that the show wrapped in 2009.
But the Vancouver-born actress enjoyed a long career before Corner Gas, and her range extends far beyond the comedy milieu.
Miller’s versatility is one of the reasons Ben Ratner was so eager to cast her in Down River, the soul-churning drama he wrote and directed as a tribute to his late friend, legendary stage and screen actress Babz Chula, who died of cancer in May, 2010.
“Working with Gabe is always fantastic. She has a rare gift of being able to blend comedy and drama in the same moments, or switch from one extreme to the next without breaking stride,” Ratner told WE. “People who know her from some of the lighter stuff she has done, like Corner Gas, will be seeing another side of her in Down River: emotionally raw, and totally authentic.”
On March 14, the made-in-Vancouver film — the critical darling of the 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival and the Vancouver Film Critics Circle’s pick for Best BC Film of 2013 — begins its hometown theatrical run at Fifth Avenue Cinemas.
Down River offers a glimpse into the lives of four women: insecure actress Fawn (Miller), tortured artist Aki (Jennifer Spence), incendiary singer Harper (Colleen Rennison), and their mentor, Pearl (Helen Shaver). The generous and tough-talking Pearl supports and anchors the younger lot, until the day she is suddenly gone, and the surviving trio must find their footing.
Ratner wrote Down River with this particular cast in mind. “Ben could call me about anything, and I would be there in a heart beat,” Miller told WE during a quiet moment at VIFF. “As an actor, you always want to play characters that challenge you, or stories that mean something to you or move you in some way, and if I had my way, I would just work with friends all the time.”
Miller was also good friends with Chula, and was a founding member of the Babz Chula Lifeline for Artists Society. “She was completely involved [in the society] and the driving force for that when she was going through all of it, at every meeting, making it look the way she wanted to, which was something that would help many artists,” Miller recalled.
While the film is not a dramatization of Chula’s life or death, it was inspired by the impact she made on those she left behind and, Miller says, Chula was “all over that movie. We had pieces of her clothing and we wore her bangles, so she was definitely with us,” said Miller, adding that you don’t need to have known Chula in order to be swept away by Down River. “She was an inspiration, and it’s an uplifting story of friendship and finding yourself as an artist and a human on this planet.”
For full screening information, visit
DownRiverMovie.com.
