Comedian Walsh smiles at golden years
TORONTO — A funny thing happened to comedy star Mary Walsh as she got older — instead of slipping into the sad and gloomy decline society had warned her about, she found herself getting happier.
At first she thought it was just her, but then she researched it and realized science has shown it’s a common feeling that comes with age, “no matter what your physical ailments or your money situation.”
“Now, if you have been miserably unhappy, you’re not going to shine with the light of 10,000 suns, but you’re going to be happier than you were when you were 46 when you’re 66,” says the St. John’s satirist, who recently gave a TEDx Talk in Toronto about oldage happiness.
“I remember reading years and years ago that life was full of 1,000 tendernesses and thinking, ‘Oh yeah.’ But then it hit me: that is true. As I get older and more wrinkly, I can’t see myself really because my eyes are gone, and so when I look in the mirror, I look quite good,” the 66-year-old continues with a laugh.
“It’s the world being tender with you. You’re losing everything that you have, everything that you’ve depended on, everything that you’ve known — and to make up for that, you’re happier.”
Indeed, Walsh appears to be living her best life these days.
The creator of the CBC comedy This Hour Has 22 Minutes was announced Thursday as the recipient of the Earle Grey Award at this year’s Canadian Screen Awards, set for March 31.
The award is for her body of work, which has also included starring in the 1980s-’90s CODCO sketch comedy series, and writing, producing and starring in the mid-2000s sitcom Hatching, Matching and Dispatching.
“I keep trying to be very calm about it and go, ‘Yes, I’m very good,’ but actually inside I’m leaping up and down and bubbling,” Walsh says. “It is, of course, a great honour.”
It’s one of many things Walsh has on the go. She’s currently starring in the CBC series Little Dog, preparing for another appearance on 22 Minutes and planning a cross-Canada trip with 22 Minutes cast member Cathy Jones to record online sketches featuring their “old-lady characters.”
Walsh is also doing a short documentary with the National Film Board of Canada on how “women get more radical as they age.”
“Again with the 1,000 tendernesses theme that I seem to be playing, we find ourselves sexually invisible at some point. We find that we’re not the object of anyone’s desire anymore, we fall out of that place,” Walsh says in discussing the doc.
“But the big payoff for that is we suddenly become the subject of our own lives for the first time … . It is a great revelation, to get older and to just feel that freedom of being the subject of your own life as opposed to longing to be the object of someone else’s desire.”
Walsh is also writing a feature film screenplay about Newfoundland and Labrador’s 1966 Come Home Year civic event, in which those who hailed from the province were encouraged to return.
The story features a 13-yearold girl who is sent back “to the people who didn’t want her in the first place,” Walsh says.
The film is taking longer to write than Walsh expected.
“I find that all mountains are steep now and that all steps are more slow,” she says.
But she doesn’t lose heart over such matters anymore.
“I think, ‘No, I’ll just keep going. I’ll get a chance at it again. I’ll sit down at it again and I’ll keep going,”’ says Walsh, who is also a mental-health advocate.
“Whereas before I would just go, ‘Oh, well, obviously then I’m not meant to do that,’ and say goodbye.”
TORONTO — Anne with an E tied Schitt’s Creek with a leading 15 Canadian Screen Award nominations Thursday for a season that focused on inclusivity and diversity — a theme producers say they plan to continue to expand upon.
The CBC show inspired by Lucy Maud Montgomery’s classic novel is up for trophies, including best drama series and best actress for Amybeth McNulty, who stars as the plucky young Prince Edward Island heroine.
The nominations were for Season 2, which included an LGBTQ storyline and the show’s first black character, a Trinidadian sailor played by Dalmar Abuzeid, who is nominated for best guest performance.
Next season, which starts shooting March 11, will see an Indigenous storyline, executive producer Miranda de Pencier revealed Thursday in an interview.
“There’s no sense in reinventing a classic novel if you’re not going to make it relevant for today’s audience,” said de Pencier, who also directed the film The Grizzlies, which got three nominations Thursday.
“So it was really important for us to find themes that matter for Canadians.”
The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television administers the awards, which honour Canadian talent in film, television and digital media.
The other best drama series contenders are City’s Bad Blood, OMNI’s Blood and Water, CBC’s Frankie Drake Mysteries and History’s Vikings.
“Schitt’s Creek’s nominations include best comedy and acting nods for the CBC show’s main stars, who play a riches-to-rags family — Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy, Catherine O’Hara and Annie Murphy.
The best comedy series category is rounded out by Crave’s Letterkenny, CBC’s Mr. D and Workin’ Moms, and OMNI’s Second Jen.
“I think it’s safe to say that Canadian comedy is really having a moment right now and our nominations reflect that,” said academy CEO Beth Janson, referring to the international acclaim raining down on many of the bestcomedy nominees lately.
On the film side, the leading contenders are from Quebec: Maxime Giroux’s allegorical drama The Great Darkened Days and Daniel Roby’s disaster thriller Just a Breath Away with eight nominations apiece.
Both are competing in categories including best picture and best director.
Giroux’s film is about a draft dodger from Quebec who takes refuge in the American West.
Just a Breath Away follows a couple trying to save their daughter from a toxic gas cloud in Paris.
Also in the running for best picture are the post-apocalyptic Genesis directed by Freddie Hutton-Mills, the coming-of-age drama A Colony from Genevieve DuludeDe Celles, and Sophie Dupuis’ Montreal crime story Family First.
All of the best-picture nominees are French-language films. Nominees in that category are chosen by a jury of industry workers, the majority of whom hail from the academy’s existing membership of between 4,500 and 5000 people across the country.
The jury chooses the nominees based on artistic excellence.
“There are those who say it’s impossible to judge artistic excellence or that it’s unfair to judge artistic excellence, but we don’t put any rules on how we do that and so every once in a while you’re going to end up with a result that is unique,” said academy chair Martin Katz.
The Canadian Screen Awards, which will air from Toronto on CBC and the CBC Gem streaming service on March 31, have a total of 135 categories.
The CBC said its popular show Kim’s Convenience, which won best comedy series at last year’s awards, was not eligible to be nominated this year as its broadcast slot moved from fall to winter.
Other major nominees this year include season 2 of CTV’s crime drama Cardinal, titled Blackfly Season, which has 14 nods including best limited series or program.
CBC News: The National has 13 nominations, while Global’s endof-life drama Mary Kills People and CBC’s parenting comedy Workin’ Moms have nine nods each.
This year’s Canadian Screen Awards won’t have a host and will hand out special honours to stars including the Kids in the Hall comedy troupe, who will get the Academy Icon Award.
Meanwhile, comedy great Mary Walsh will receive the Earle Grey Award for her body of work and filmmaker Deepa Mehta will get the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Toronto actor Stephan James — who has skyrocketed to fame with starring roles in the Oscar-nominated film If Beale Street Could Talk and the Amazon Prime Video series Homecoming — will get the inaugural Radius Award, which goes to a Canadian making waves globally.
Overall, women received 50 per cent of the nominations across all writing categories, and dominate nominations in film direction, feature film and web performance categories.