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THE BEAUTY IN COMEDY
Heart and humour go hand in hand for Gabrielle Miller.
By Elisa Kosonen
On the comedy circuit back in 2002, Canadian comedian Brent Butt was developing what was to become a Canadian phenomenon: a half-hour comedy series about a small town in Saskatchewan, and the people who live there. he knew the terrain well; he had grown up in it. He would star as Brent Leroy, owner of the gas station called Corner Gas. As the Characters took shape, he was looking for a woman to sweep the townsfolk off their feet and into the local cafe as Lacey Burrows, a perky optimist with a quirky kind of gorgeous to smuggle into town. Gabrielle Miller was the woman for the job. Corner Gas is now in its fourth season, and has been nominated for and won numerous awards, a few of which fell into the hands of Gabrielle. But she became a part of it not altogether by intent or logic.
"I was moving to L.A. when I first heard of the part," says the B.C.-born Gabrielle, sipping a cappuccino at a swank Vancouver eatery. "I thought okay, I'll get to see Canada for a few months, then go back to L.A. I never thought it would turn out like this. "She's on break from filming the nest season in Rouleau, Saskatchewan, and back on the West Coast if only for a brief interlude. It's back to work the next day. Smiling, her perfect bow mouth reaches far, to high cheekbones. She has the face of a 1940s silver screen star, classic and picture perfect . But she's candid, honest, and just plain goofy at times. Which fits into her character just fine. "I'm not just saying this," she confides, her eyes widening behind Ray-Bans, "you know like some people sometimes say, but this is the best season by far. It really is. " With 1.4 million people tuning in for the season opener this past September, there's reason to believe she's right. " There's never a time where it doesn't feel right," she say of the scripts. "I mean, I've done a lot of crap where you are like, 'How do I make this sound okay?' But I feel excited about this. It's intelligent and the kind of humour that people are looking for. "Its that kind of humour where nothing really happens and everyone is essentially doing nothing, that brings the iconic name os Seinfeld to the equation.
But for being integral to such a moment in Canadian humour, and for appearing such a natural at it, it's hard to believe Gabrielle wasn't trained in comedy. "My history is in drams. It's so funny to me that I'm doing comedy." now, funny enough, she's starring in two Canadian comedy series, Robson Arms and Corner Gas, and her most recent movie, Love and Other Dilemmas, is a romantic comedy where she blazes onscreen like the perfect Meg Ryan, wacky and endearing.
Granted, her career had a fairly humorous start, perhaps a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy, Gabrielle explains; "My first job was a comedy pilot. With a live a audience and everything. Which took a long time to get used to. Although when we were rehearsing, crew members would be hammering over in the corner and every once in a while would stop and laugh. I thought, 'How supportive!'" she says, opening her eyes wide with animation. That support means a great deal to her, as she isn't naturally someone who looks for an audience. "I was a very shy little girl," Gabrielle admits. "But I had a rich imagination. " Growing up, it was a stroke of luck and good neighbors who took her to acting class at the age of eight. She was instantly taken. "It was permission to play. I felt safe in another character."
But a teenage life would dictate, she was distanced from pursuing it further. "We moved around a lot," she says. And she moved out on her own at the age of 15. "It was nothing to do with family, I just needed that time to focus on myself." She remained in school and ended up starting a house cleaning service with her mom. At 17, during a day on the job, Gabrielle came to a turning point in her life. "One day I was working with my mom, and we were cleaning the house of a girl I went to school with. There were a few of the girls I went to school with downstairs having a sleepover and eating pancakes, and I was upstairs cleaning the ensuite," Gabrielle relate. At that point her mom came over to her to console her in the uncomfortable situation. She said, 'You decide what you want to do and go after it, Gabe." She pauses, her cheeks blush and her voice softens with obvious emotion. "But she said do it now or it will be too late." So GAbrielle got an agent and set out to pursue acting for real. At 18, she was starring in a feature film.
That dedication and determination extends into other areas in Gabrielle's life as well. She is a spokesperson for The Vela Microboard Association, an organization that helps bring together a small group of family and friends (a microboard) and a person who faces challenges, to create a non-profit society in which they address the planning and support needs in empowering the individual. Again, it was her family that spurred that passion to fruition. Her sister, Shanti, has cerebral palsy and was the first person in British Columbia to have a microboard. "Now there are over 500, " Gabrielle says with a glint of pride in her eye. She is dedicated to improving the lives of those with disabilities and sat on the panel at the Inclusion Conference lat this autumn. She states that this work "makes me the happiest". And she also says that this current time in her life is "the happiest time". But what of the future? "Directing and producing on my own." Gabrielle says, then pauses with a chuckle. "Well, not on my own...yeah, just me and a camera. And fifty bucks!"
It seems heart and humour are the driving forces in Gabrielle Miller's life, both professionally and personally. Currently she is also doing things that are almost completely Canadian, for the first time in her career. "I'm just happy that we have an industry to be ingrained in; that we're telling Canadian stories and supporting our own community has been integral to finding out what it really means to be Canadian and how Canadian identity is defined." she says, "but not after doing (Corner Gas). Early in my career, it was geared towards American stories and getting rid of my Canadian accent. But now I have a feeling of what it is to be Canadian." And the rest of Canada has our all-Canadian girl, to keep us laughing, at home.