HELFER LENDS VOICE TO PLIGHT OF ANIMALS
Albertan joins all-star cast for animated short on the use of animals in cosmetic testing
Tricia Helfer's introduction to cosmetics seemed unusually traumatic.
When she was 12 years old and living in rural Alberta, she received some makeup for Christmas. It was the first time she was allowed to use it. But not long after applying it, she suffered an allergic reaction.
“I was allergic to the first thing I ever put on my face,” she says, in an interview from Atlanta during a break in shooting the television series Step Up: High Water.
There is a certain irony to this story, of course. Within five years, Helfer would embark on a decade-long career as an international model and spend the following 20 as an in-demand actress for film and television. Both jobs have required her to have an “inordinate amount of products used on my face and my skin and my hair.”
But Helfer is not telling the story to highlight the irony. Her point is that she, and presumably others, suffered allergic reactions even though the makeup in question was probably tested on animals to confirm it wouldn't cause reactions, suggesting the process is not only cruel but occasionally futile as well. She was well into her career as an actress before she became aware of how cosmetics were tested on animals. It was a shocking, eye-opening revelation for the animal lover, who had avoided meat and animal products for most of her adult life.
“Even through all these years of working with an exaggerated amount of product, I wasn't aware,” she says. “Call it ignorance, call it just out-of-sight, out-of-mind, but I wasn't aware that practically everything in your drugstore aisle, or your makeup store or your cosmetic store was tested on animals. When I realized that, I started working with (Humane Society International) and began really realizing what was happening. It shocked me.
“This does not have to happen in this day and age. Cosmetic testing began in the 1940s. Just imagine how much science has changed since then. The methods are outdated and unreliable. I mean, even from my own experience of having a very serious eye allergy to quite a few makeup products: it didn't even work for someone like me.”
Helfer figured if she didn't know about it, she wasn't alone. So she has spent the last several years lobbying against the use of animals in cosmetic testing, imploring regulators in Canada and the U.S. and beyond to outlaw the practice.
She also recently lent her voice to the short stop-motion animated film Save Ralph. It features a ragged white rabbit named Ralph being followed around by a documentary film crew as he matter-of-factly discusses his lot in life as a test subject for cosmetics.
The film was produced by Humane Society International and is less than four minutes long but features an all-star cast who volunteered their time. That includes actor-filmmaker Taika Waititi, who voices Ralph, and Ricky Gervais, who voices the documentary interviewer. Pom Klementieff, Zac Efron and Olivia Munn also voice characters.
Helfer, who has played everything from the leggy and lethal Cylon Number Six in Battlestar Galactica, to God's human-hating bitter ex-wife Charlotte in Lucifer, to Dracula in the final season of Van Helsing, has a small role. She voices Cottonballs, one of many frightened, desperate rabbits who plead with Ralph to have the documentary crew help them escape their captivity.
Given her past activism for animal rights with Humane Society International, Helfer says her participation in Save Ralph was a “no-brainer.” The movie was directed by Spencer Susser and uses puppets created by Andy Gent, the animator and producer who worked on Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs and Fantastic Mr. Fox. The film reels us in. It's funny and cute, but ultimately more than a little disturbing. Still, it's much easier to watch than those real-life, hidden-camera exposés released to show cruelty to animals in various factory farms and other operations.
“It draws you in and then when you realize what is happening I think it can really have a strong impact on people, but be more palatable to watch,” Helfer says. “I've heard so many ... say that it just really affected them because they were taken in by it and ultimately you find out what happens to Ralph and people remember it. Maybe that's what makes them take the initiative to call up their legislature and urge them to pass legislation.”
Back in 2015, Helfer penned an op-ed piece for Postmedia on the subject, urging readers to demand changes to Canada's Food and Drugs Act that would prohibit testing for cosmetic purposes, a change that still hasn't happened.
Helfer says she has always been an animal lover, although isn't sure when that officially became a passion. She did grow up as a farm girl doing chores in rural Alberta, which may have had an impact. The family operation, which was just outside of Donalda, was predominantly a grain farm. But she does have an early memory of accompanying her father out to a pasture and watching him shoot a cow, which was then butchered for meat. The family also kept chickens that they slaughtered for food.
“Ever since I've been an adult, I've steered away from animal products,” she says. “I've been a vegetarian. I don't know if those years formed that.”
Helfer was discovered at the age of 17, quickly becoming an early success story for Calgary's Mode Models. Appearing in advertising campaigns for Chanel and Victoria's Secret, she walked runways around the world before turning her attention to acting. Since her star-making 2003 turn as Number Six in Battlestar Galactica, she has carved out a career playing memorable lead and recurring characters in several shows.
On April 16, the fifth and final season of the post-apocalyptic supernatural thriller Van Helsing will begin in the U.S. on Syfy and eventually stream on Netflix for Canadian audiences. After an intriguing appearance in two episodes of Season 4, Helfer returns as Dracula for Season 5, which will include the origin story of the character who first came into contact with the vampire-hunting Van Helsing family. Episodes that deal with Dracula's past (in 18th-century Transylvania) were shot in Slovakia before production moved back to Vancouver.
“It will inform the rest of the season,” Helfer says. “I'm really excited. Not only was it a treat for me. It was my first time filming that kind of time period but also filming in Europe and filming in these old stone castles. It was so much fun. I think the fans will get a kick out of it.”
For more information about the #Saveralph campaign and to watch the film, visit hsi.org/saveralphmovie/
This does not have to happen in this day and age. Cosmetic testing began in the 1940s. Just imagine how much science has changed since then.