Girl, uninterrupted

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This article was published 13/12/2014 (4041 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Being a film and television actor in Winnipeg means resisting the constant temptation to quit the business.

The long odds against success, the endless auditions and regular rejection wear on the most confident of young actors, who must suppress ever-present doubts that favour throwing in the towel. Winnipeg-born actress Jenny Pudavick knows that part of the business all too well.

“I have to say, I have thought about it many times over the last decade, but I never do,” says the 32-year-old Oak Park High School graduate. “I could say ‘I quit,’ start another side job, but that’s when I will book a show. That’s kind of how it works.”

So when the acting roller-coaster is racing skyward, as it is for Pudavick at the moment, all she can do is gratefully enjoy the ride and scream, “Wheeee!”

The dark-haired Métis actress can be seen in a supporting role on the Winnipeg-lensed series The Pinkertons and she currently plays one of the title characters in the rez comedy Mohawk Girls on the Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN). Her Bailey wants to date only Mohawk men, in the hopes of preserving her culture. The trouble is that she first guy she falls for turns out to be a second cousin — a not-so-unusual situation on the close-knit Kahnawake reservation on the south shore of Montreal.

“The show is my breakthrough,” says Pudavick, who was married in September to movie stunt co-ordinator Daniel Skene. “It’s getting such a great reception, it can only be a positive thing for my career.”

The series was shot in Kahnawake in 2013 on a lightning-fast schedule that produced a 30-minute episode every three days. APTN liked the initial seven episodes so much they ordered another six (filmed last May and June) that were joined into a full season. Two episodes have been running back to back on Tuesdays.

Mohawk Girls offers a raw and randy view of dating among boy-crazy 20-somethings who find it hard to follow their hearts, given the social pressure to stay within the tribe. Mohawk Girls creator and director Tracey Deer has first-hand knowledge of that world, which includes a character named Butterhead who’s known for slathering his hookups with butter.

“Two of the leads (Brittany LeBorgne and Heather White) are from Kahnawake and said all these stories happened to them or Tracey,” says Pudavick. “It’s all real. The wanting to preserve their culture is something a lot of ethnic groups can relate to. All four women are someone you know.”

Mohawk Girls intends to change the way Canadians view First Nations people, in part by focusing on their wicked sense of humour. The horny characters also stand out from other network sitcoms.

“The sexiness is right where it needs to be,” she says. “It’s really ballsy that they wrote so much of it into the show. We kind of just went with it.”

Pudavick’s acting aspirations started at Oak Park, where she landed the lead in the senior production of The Birds. She entered the acting program at the University of Winnipeg while being cast in small parts in the locally shot horror films Wishmaster 3 and 4. In a hurry to launch her career, she left school and town in 2003 for brighter lights.

“I did the whole let’s-move-to-Vancouver-and-be-an-actor and I ended up working at Earls,” she recalls. “There was lots of auditioning, no acting. It wasn’t the greatest time for me.”

She returned to Winnipeg and worked on and off, with recurring roles in the Winnipeg-based TV comedy series Less Than Kind and five seasons of another APTN program called Cashing In. Her first lead role was another slasher flick, Wrong Turn 4, in 2010.

“I was the stereotypical leader-of-the-pack girl who makes all these wrong decisions and gets all her friends killed,” she says. “I had the stupidest ideas ever.”

In recent years she has travelled back and forth between Winnipeg and Toronto, where she teaches at the Armstrong Acting Studios. That keeps her prepared for when the telephone rings for a callback.

“The idea of never knowing when your next paycheque is coming from makes it really hard to plan for anything,” says Pudavick, who won a gold medal in team rhythmic gymnastics at the 1999 Pan Am Games. “Sometimes my husband and I will work for six weeks straight and then we’re off for two months and use up all the money we just made and are starting at the bottom again.”

That’s lead to moonlighting jobs at Earls in Winnipeg and Toronto, as well as stints as a certified wedding planner, nanny and karaoke host.

“As an athlete, I’m used to not always winning and I’m used to rejection,” she says. “It doesn’t land on me as hard as other actors. I don’t take it too seriously if I don’t book for a long time.”

Her bucket list includes an appearance on a CSI, a lead role in an action film, working on a Naked Gun-like comedy and her debut on a hometown stage. Until then, she is thrilled there is another season of Mohawk Girls in the works.

“It’s a high and you want more. That’s what keeps me going. I always try to keep my mind on something as well as acting. If this is your sole sense of being, then the reality will drive you nuts.”

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca