And you recently did a movie about an ice skater, “Ice Princess,” didn’t you?
Yeah. It’s coming out in March.
Did you already ice skate or did you have to learn that from scratch?
No. Learned it from scratch. It was fun. It was like, “Okay, I just got off of horse riding. Now I’m gonna fall again on the ice.” It was exciting.
Did you do any of your own skating in the film?
Oh nooo. I could make my way slowly across the ice. I hated ice skating. I couldn’t stand it. You couldn’t get me on the ice. My brother loves hockey and so he would sit there and say, “Hay, come on out,” and I’d go, “No. It’s cold. I don’t want go there. Are you crazy?”
Is he older or younger?
He’s 10.
Does he have acting ambitions?
Yeah. He plays the voice of young Stripes in this movie. He does a lot of voice work. I did “Tiger Cruise” with him, which was a Disney channel film that came out in August. He definitely does. He doesn’t look like me. He got sort of the same face but he’s dark. He’s got dark hair and dark, dark brown eyes and dark skin. He didn’t play my brother and nobody batted an eye because he didn’t look like me.
Who do you play in “Ice Princess?”
I play this girl, Jen, and I’m a figure skater. It’s funny because there’s another girl in it and we play sort of opposites. She is a brain who is very good at school who has dreams of becoming a figure skater, and I am a figure skater who has dreams of staying in school long enough to pass Math so I can actually have a future. My mother, who is played by Kim Cattrall, who is a sweetheart, sort of was living her dreams through me because she was supposed to go to Calgary for the Olympics and something happened. Can’t say what. She’s been living through me and I overcome my fears of her and finally tell her, and [then] fulfill all my dreams.
She’s a very cool character because, in the beginning, she gets to play sort of the nasty girl, the bitch; cheerleader-esque. And then she evolves and you see all these layers that she has and her needs because she goes from that to sort of befriending this girl and taking her under her wing and guiding her a little bit. And overcoming her fears at the same time. The audience gets to see that she’s not just a stuck-up snob. She’s actually a real girl who has real dreams.
