Native part came naturally
By LIZ BRAUN, SUN MEDIA

Not a lot of movie stars hail from Sioux Lookout, Ontario, but that's where Melanie McLaren calls home.

These days, however, the beautiful star of Tkaronto spends most of her time in Toronto and Los Angeles.

McLaren, a former model, co-stars in Tkaronto with Duane Murray; the film is a smart, talky drama about a man and a woman who connect through their exploration of what it means to be Aboriginal in the modern world. The indie film, written and directed by Shane Belcourt, is attracting a lot of positive attention.

The twentysomething McLaren was in town to promote Tkaronto (the Mohawk word for Toronto) and says that making the movie fulfills one of the goals she set for herself years ago.

"I'd always wanted to do an Aboriginal, urban, contemporary piece," she says. "When this opportunity came along, it was easy to jump on board."

McLaren, who has been living and working in Los Angeles for a few years, got her first part on the series Special Unit 2. She has appeared in national and international TV commercials and in major print campaigns, and she starred in a short film (The Gardener) that had its world premiere last year at the Cannes film festival.

Despite being a relative newcomer to the big screen, her performance in Tkaronto is superb.

Still, the actress says she didn't work at all in her first year in L.A. and was ready to pack it in and go home. In the nick of time, she won a major cosmetics ad campaign, then found an agent in Toronto in Angela Wright at ETM.

"I grew up in small towns all over northern Ontario," says McLaren, "and there was no drama or any other arts of any kind. When I left home, I went to Western to study business and then discovered that wasn't for me.

'100 YEARS OF SILENCE'

"I travelled to Europe and did some modelling, and then I did a commercial for Coca-Cola. And I thought, 'I can do this.'

"As a little girl, I'd always wanted to be an actress but I never thought that could be my reality, partially because in those isolated communities, it never seemed like an option. I wanted so badly to have dancing training and acting lessons, but it just wasn't offered.

"I kind of lost sight of that, but then it became a reality again."

In real life, as in Tkaronto, her Aboriginal cultural identity is crucial to McLaren.

She recently worked with her sister, filmmaker Nadia McLaren, on a film called Muffins For Granny -- interviews with aboriginal Canadians about the residential school experience.

"It's like, 100 years of silence. Nobody talks about it, but lately, people are stepping up to tell their stories. Some of the people are afraid to say anything against the nuns and priests, for fear they'll go to hell. It's just awful. It's so great that Nadia did this film."

McLaren's own grandmother spoke of her experiences with the residential schools, after years of never talking about her past.

McLaren felt "different" as a child because of discrimination. Cultural identity, she says, "Was never really shown or celebrated or talked about. I know I felt discrimination, because once when someone asked me about my background, I said I was Italian. People called us names. It wasn't just kids."

Finally getting to know about her own culture she says, was a beautiful gift. "It was something to be proud of and to explore. I'm still exploring it. It's like a whole other world opens up to you that you want to connect with, and find out where you fit in all of that. These stories are worthy and need to be told," she says, referring to both Tkaronto and to her sister's film.

"It helps open up people's eyes and lets them have a better understanding."

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