Ali Liebert learns a deep truth from almost every character she plays, and Jan, her character in The Devout, taught her volumes about motherhood and grief.
In the feature film debut from BC director Connor Gaston – set for its North American premiere at the 2015 Vancouver International Film Festival after world-premiering in South Korea – Liebert (as Jan) is a mother caring for her terminally ill 4-year-old daughter, Abi (played by newcomer Olivia Martin).
That’s a heavy load for any mother to bear – but the deeply religious Jan is also struggling to make sense of her husband Darryl’s increasingly fervent belief that their dying daughter is the reincarnation of a dead astronaut (Darryl is portrayed by actor Charlie Carrick).
We won’t tell you much more than that (we’re treading far too close to Spoiler Country as it is), but it’s safe to disclose that, from Jan – and through interacting with the film’s youngest star – Liebert gained insight into what it means to be a mom.
“This was the first in-depth mother role that I played,” says Liebert over coffee on The Drive. “After filming, I had a lot more respect for moms and just the full-on time of it all. I was like, ‘Wow, mothers are amazing.’”
“I think every part changes a little bit of who you are,” Liebert adds. “I don’t want to do any roles where I don’t learn anything, or that don’t scare me.”
It’s a particularly busy time for the Vancouver-based actress (lots of auditions and callbacks), but even during this busy time – nine months after production wrapped on The Devout – Liebert vividly recalls the heightened emotions that characterized her experience on the film’s various Vancouver Island sets.
“It was oddly satisfying. We’re such strange creatures. That [experience] was fun. Even though I was not myself, and I was really wrecked, that to me is really fun,” she says. “It was satisfying, because actors just love feeling shit, and it was a very juicy role in terms of what actors love to do, so I felt a great privilege playing this role and being able to work with these fantastic actors and Connor and the whole team.”
Liebert met director Gaston at the 2013 Whistler Film Festival where Liebert (one of that year’s Rising Stars) sat on a jury that judged Gaston’s entry in the MPPIA Short Film Award Competition.
Gaston didn’t win, but his contest entry had a profound impact on Liebert.
“I basically went up to him afterwards and said, ‘Sorry you didn’t win, but I really want to work with you in the future,’” she says.
That future, as it happened, would be just over a year away.
The Devout afforded Liebert the opportunity to work with the legendary thespian Gabrielle Rose (“She’s so giving and brilliant and I love watching her and being in scenes with her. I have nothing but awe and fascination for her”), and with Carrick, who’d been Liebert’s LA roommate during pilot season.
“I don’t know if Charlie knows this, but when I read the script, I said, ‘This is Charlie,’ and so I suggested Charlie to Connor,” says Liebert. “I think he did an amazing job.”
Jan will remain close to Liebert’s bones for some time, she says, much like that other character with whom she is so closely associated: Betty McRae from Bomb Girls (Global’s fan-favourite – but ultimately short-lived – series about women who built bombs in a munitions factory during World War II).
Liebert won a Canadian Screen Award earlier this year for her portrayal of Betty in the 2014 television movie, Bomb Girls: Facing the Enemy.
Bomb Girls “changed every single aspect of my life,” says Liebert. “The show, and the people I got to meet, and the stories we got to tell, and then Betty herself; she was such a great vessel for seeing a character struggle with their identity and coming to terms with who they are in a brave and totally clumsy way. It was just so beautiful.”
Liebert still hears from fans deeply affected by Betty’s difficult and dizzying journey of sexual self-discovery that unfolded during an era altogether unfriendly to LGBT people.
“I’ve gotten letters from people who are in parts of the world where it’s illegal to be out at all, and I’ve heard from a few girls who’ve told me, ‘I decided not to take my life because I felt I could see myself in Betty, and she kept fighting,’” says Liebert, who also appeared in 2013’s Down River and Afterparty, as well as CBC’s Strange Empire and the soon-to-air Paranormal Solutions Inc. series.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to play a role that’s had that much effect on people again,” says Liebert. “I hope that I do. I hope it’s the beginning of lots of roles. But it’ll always be a particularly meaningful role to me personally and also within the community as well.”
The Devout screens as part of VIFF’s BC Spotlight series. For tickets and screening times, visit http://www.viff.org/festival/films/f18345-the-devout.
MORE FROM ALI LIEBERT
-Ali Liebert grew up on Vancouver Island and fell in love with performing arts by way of musical theatre. “I wanted to go to Broadway, but I never wanted to be a chorus girl. I wanted to be Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli. Those were my heroes.”
-Liebert moved to Vancouver after theatre school, and got her first taste of the film and TV biz as an assistant for a couple of casting directors. For nine years, Liebert read opposite a veritable Who’s Who of the city’s best actors (including Ben Ratner, Michael Eklund, April Telek, and The Devout co-star Gabrielle Rose) while working a steady string of “joe jobs” in the downtown core.
-Liebert reflects on those early days in Vancouver: “I was a really shit waitress for a lot of years. I had something like 12 part-time jobs on Robson Street alone. When I first moved to Vancouver, I was working the morning Starbucks shift, 5am to noon, and then I would maybe have an audition once every three weeks somewhere in the afternoon, and then I would go and I would hostess at Milestones from 5pm until 11pm. It was horrible. I have so much gratitude for how far I’ve come. When I worked at Starbucks at the Chapters at Robson and Howe, I used to serve Mikey [Eklund] and Ben Cotton. They used to come and look at their sides. I didn’t even know what sides were. I was 21-years-old and would say, ‘I’m an actor!’ And they were like, ‘Okay, what’s up?’ And I remember saying something like, ‘I’m going to be an actor one day,’ and they said, ‘You already are an actor,’ and I was amazed. And when I got to work with Ben on Harper’s Island, it was like coming full-circle, and he was like, ‘What’s up, Starbucks Girl?’”
-Her first professional TV gig was on the pilot for The L-Word, during which she rapped some lyrics from Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”: “I was doing karaoke in the dyke bar, and rapping ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie.’ You see me for two seconds. It was terrifying. I’d never really been on set before and I thought they would have a karaoke screen with the words on it, but I’m looking at a TV and there’s a light in it, and I’m like, ‘What?’ And I’m rapping, and there are 50, maybe 100 extras, and it’s dead silence. I was like, ‘This is embarrassing.’ And I had food poisoning the night before. It was a really weird first job, but a lot of Bomb Girls fans find it really funny that my first job was on The L-Word.”
