  Tonya Lee Williams. |
Tonya Lee Williams is speaking for all Canadian actors and actresses in Hollywood when she says, "We would love to come back home and work."
Alas, that courtship does not occur as often as Williams would like, despite the level of fame she has achieved on a personal level playing Dr. Olivia Winters for the past decade and a half on the daytime drama The Young and The Restless.
"Canadians gather in Los Angeles all the time and we say, 'You would think somebody in Canada would hire us for something,' " Williams said with a laugh. "I don't understand where the stigma comes from, because I don't know anyone who says, 'I'm never going back to Canada, even if they throw me work and money, no way.' "
As a black Canadian actress who increasingly is branching into directing and producing, the 38-year-old Williams has spent her entire life breaking down borders. Her many accomplishments in front of the camera, behind the camera and as an activist will be acknowledged on Tuesday, when she is presented with the ACTRA award of excellence at a special ceremony in Los Angeles.
ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) is the union that represents English-language Canadian actors and actresses working in Canada. The ceremony will take place at the Canadian residence of Alain Dudoit, the Consul General of Canada in L.A.
Williams had to go to the United States to seek her fame and fortune as an actress back in the mid-1980s, because there just wasn't much work for her in Canada at the time. But now that the Canadian movie and TV industries have expanded, Williams wonders why all those Canadians in California essentially have been forgotten in their home country.
"Sometimes there's the thought that, 'Those people left, they don't really care about us,' " Williams said. "But we would have been happy to stay. And it's not like we've gone to another universe. Americans come up to Canada and work all the time, yet I can count on one hand the number of times I've been asked to come back to Canada to do any kind of work. It's very rare. And yet, I'm completely open to it."
Williams lives in L.A., but she nonetheless spends a lot of time in the Toronto area. She is the founder and president of the ReelWorld Film Festival and Foundation, and recently was appointed to the Toronto Film Board.
She has been an ACTRA member for 27 years and is a member of ACTRA Toronto's diversity committee.
"Getting recognized in the U.S. is wonderful, but to be recognized in your own country is more sweet," Williams said.
"People ask me, 'Why would you start your festival (in Toronto) and why did you start your production company here?' It's because I believe Canada is positioned perfectly to show the world work that no one else even has thought of doing yet, because we already are in that mode of diversity.
"We shouldn't feel like second-class citizens about it. We're actually the front-runners in terms of totally diverse work that would blow the minds of Americans. That's the kind of stuff I want to produce."
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