Beyond beauty Actress Jennifer Dale adds writing to her resumé in film shot in Winnipeg By: Randall King Posted: 7:00 PM CST Monday, Jan. 28, 2019

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In the realm of Canadian film and television, Jennifer Dale is one of those rare actresses who brings glamour to a cultural realm that doesn’t especially prize that particular commodity — at least not as much as its Hollywood brethren.

But for the past four decades, Dale, the older sister of actress Cynthia Dale, has been lending her classy-cool elegance to everything from the Peter Weller vs. rat movie Of Unknown Origin to Atom Egoyan’s The Adjuster. She’s been even more busy on the small screen, dating from the John Byner series Bizarre to Night Heat to Made in Canada. She also works on stage, most recently in Winnipeg in February 2015, starring in the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre production of Christopher Durang’s Chekhov spoof Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike.

Dale wilfully transcends mere beauty in her new film Into Invisible Light by co-writing the script with Winnipeg director Shelagh Carter (Passionflower).

Speaking on the phone from her home in Toronto, Dale says her belated first feature writing credit hasn’t been for lack of trying.

“I actually spent many years in various collaborations with different writers and directors attempting to write scripts that I hope might have been produced,” she says. “But this project with Shelagh was the first feature where I was able to accomplish that.”

In the film, Dale plays Helena, a woman haunted by a past failure to embrace her writerly instincts. Finding herself widowed and in her 60s, she takes that challenge at the same time she resumes a long-ago love affair with an old boyfriend (Peter Kelaghan).

The story was the result of brainstorming sessions between Dale and Carter, especially when it came to Helena ignoring her own potential.

“It was Shelagh who hit on this Chekhovian idea, and asked me if I had ever played any Chekhov characters in the theatre (beyond the Durang parody), which I had not,” Dale says. “But I had worked in acting classes on the character of Yelana in Uncle Vanya.

“I was very attracted to that character because she was somebody who, on the outside of her life, appeared to have it all together, to be attractive. But she was somebody who was completely unfulfilled in her potential,” Dale says. “She had more intelligence and hidden depths that she was allowing herself to claim.”

Dale stops short of suggesting Helena is based on herself.

“Certainly, there are autobiographical elements and things that I relate to,” Dale says. “I’ve never been the kind of actor who could be called ‘chameleonesque.’ Like many actors, I understand what I’m best suited to, that they can bring the most of themselves to.

“So this is why we were able to create this for me to play, and I finally realize my capacity for writing,” she says. “What a tremendous creative joy for me to be given that chance to do that with Shelagh.”

Shooting the film in Winnipeg during the fall of 2017 facilitated a reunion for her and Kelaghan, she says.

“I worked with Peter when he was on the series Made in Canada,” she says. “I did an episode and he reminded me I had played his ex-wife and we’d had this kind of raunchy sex scene on his desk in his office.

“I had completely forgotten that,” Dale says with a laugh. “Peter was devastated. He called it ‘one of the highlights of my career.’ “

Dale is not about to rest on her writing laurels now.

“I’m at work on something else, and it’s OK if it takes a while to be produced,” she says. “Because the character I’m playing is going to be 100 years old.”

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing

Randall King
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In a way, Randall King was born into the entertainment beat.

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