For someone who has made a career of juggling a gaggle of projects and roles, Paula Brancati has a few surprising traits. For one, the Thornhill native is a night owl, prone to answering emails and even making business decisions in the wee hours. As well, she’s a notorious last-minute packer. She spoke with us mere hours before her 11 p.m. flight to Cannes for the 2014 film festival and had not yet prepped her festival bags. Like a pro, though, she takes it all in stride.
“My brother and my parents can’t believe I’ve been packing like this for years, but that’s just the way it’s going to be, I guess,” she says, laughing.
And Brancati really has been doing this for years: at only 24, she is already a veteran of film, television and the stage — at the very least, you’ll likely recognize her either as troubled teen Jane Vaughn from Degrassi: The Next Generation or party girl Jenny Zalen of Being Erica.
Now Brancati’s in the process of racking up producing credits with her newly formed production company, BrancSeater Productions.
These are heavyweight accomplishments in the performing arts from a woman who claims to have been a very shy child (and that’s without even having mentioned Brancati’s talent for singing. YouTube it.)
“I was actually incredibly shy, which I think is hard for people to believe,” says Brancati. But her natural shyness was matched by a natural comfort with the arts.
“When we had family functions and someone would ask me to sing, I was so embarrassed and nervous, but somehow I always felt like being onstage gave you this path to dive into someone else’s life and really slip into a character.”
Her childhood was, happily, filled with opportunities to get up onstage. She took music lessons at the Thornhill School of Music, was a member of the CharActors Theatre Troupe and attended at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School where she was in the regional arts program.
“I was in the choir and sang every day at school,” Brancati recalls, as she enthuses about her high school years. “It was such a supportive program. I felt like everyone could march to their own drum beat there and everyone seemed to flourish.”
All the while, Brancati (with the help of an agent) had ambitiously begun to establish herself as a viable TV actress, starring in a string of shows, including The Blobheads and Dark Oracle, until she landed her leading role on Degrassi when she was just 18. Ironically, the character that kicked her career into high gear could not have been more different from Brancati herself.
“My high school experience was much tamer than Jane’s,” she says. “I felt for the first time, at that age, that I started meeting kids who were doing the same kinds of things as me. I thought, ‘Oh, these people get me — we’re all obsessed with harmonizing in the stairwell.’ ”
Only two years after her Degrassi debut, she joined the ensemble cast of a new show, Being Erica. It was a hectic time for Brancati, who sometimes filmed Being Erica through the night and then headed straight to the Degrassi set. (Maybe that explains the night owl tendencies?)
It was also an incredible learning experience for the young actor, who got a glimpse at the inner workings of both a new hit franchise and a long-running show.
“Working on Being Erica from the pilot and always being included in the creative process was really exciting,” says Brancati. “On Degrassi, you’re walking into a ready- made fan base, which can be daunting but was also incredibly exciting. I think I learned in both those experiences that TV shows can be made in so many different ways and that there’s so many different ways that work.”
Today, Brancati is putting all her behind-the-scenes know-how to good use and focusing her energies on BrancSeater Productions. Her decision to shift her energies to producing was carefully thought out.
“I got out of high school and looked back and said, ‘Oh my god — I’ve been doing this since I was eight and I’m still so young.’ I really felt serious about moving forward and growing in the industry, and that’s part of why I’m opening this production company,” she explains. “I’m really excited about making my own films and hiring actors that I admire who perhaps I wouldn’t be able to work with otherwise.”
So far, the choice is obviously paying off. Brancati is travelling to Cannes to screen the company’s very first project, a short film called Sly Cad, which was selected by Telefilm Canada as part of their Not Short on Talent program. The film was shot and set in Toronto, features local actors and is, says Brancati, “a love letter to Toronto.”
Characteristically, she is a hands-on producer, involving herself in every aspect of her projects. When Sly Cad was shooting on the Leslie Street Spit last summer, Brancati had to learn to ride a bike so she could get down to the set. “In that week of filming I think I did more bike riding than my entire family combined,” she laughs. “It was a really tough but really fun shoot.”
Even with the excitement of the trip to Cannes, Brancati and her business partner, Michael Seater, already have several projects in the works, including People Hold On, a full-length feature film set in cottage country, in which Brancati will star.
Even if the shoot means learning to drive a boat, it’ll be no problem —Brancati is up to the challenge. Just don’t ask her to pack.
