Kiran Friesen is an actress and writer, known for Bruiser (2000), Odyssey 5 (2002), and The Unusual Suspects (2012) She’s no stranger to life, taking fast and surprising turns. She moved from her hometown Edmonton, Alberta with a month’s notice, now years later, she’s doing the same, from Toronto to LA. We caught up with her to discuss her colorful career and new exciting projects.
Hi Kiran, congratulations on your career to date. It’s a pleasure to have you join us for an interview. For the benefit of our readers, how did you initially get into acting?
Thank you! I was a shy, only child, who was called “weird” by the other kids for a lot of my childhood. As a result, I lived in my head and imagination. I’d pretend to be other things and other people, as well as have lots of full-blown conversations with invisible people. This living in my imagination and fantasy also translated into art feeling like a safe and magic place. My mother was an artist and so I was supported in my love of drawing, singing, living room dancing (I wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer so badly), and writing (tried to write my first “novel” in grade 4). But movies were the ultimate magic. So much so, it didn’t occur to me that it was something a person could actually do.
One day in English class, we were given scenes to prepare, and it changed everything. Suddenly this shy kid had words. It was like all of the emotion and desire to connect in this shy, awkward body had a vehicle. I could connect, but also feel safe while doing so. I grew up in Ft McMurray, a small city in the middle of the sticks in northern Alberta, and was incredibly lucky to go to a high school with a real theatre, and the city had a huge theatre where I performed and practiced. I became a big fish in a small pond. Still shy, but with a kind of light on me.
I moved to Edmonton where I went to theatre school. I went to the first school I was accepted to, which was musical theatre. Something didn’t feel aligned there. Until the summer in between, I was in a production of Tony ’n Tina’s Wedding where I got to improvise around the fenceposts of story events, talking to real people in a real way every night, in character. The magic again.
After school, I worked for a year in theatre and such, and put savings aside. One day, I got a call from an old teacher telling me it was time to move to Toronto. She said, “you have two days to decide and one month to get here”. When I arrived, I found a community of film actors and found my place. I love theatre, but for me, the work is about intimacy. Film (and intimate theatre) is where I’m aligned. So, I found a teacher, an agent, and jumped into the pool.
Aside from acting, you’ve studied opera and become a three-time pole dance champion. Firstly, is your interest in opera something we’ll see develop- is this of equal interest to your acting pursuits?
Hm… I’m not sure if equality can exist in this way. I’d say it’s a bit like children… each passion/art form loved and different like children… but then it would get morbid when I say that I’ve killed some children to help others survive.
Opera was one of those because it’s its own career path. A demanding one. And I had my sights set on film and TV. It sounds a bit like bragging, but singing was easy for me in the way that easy things tend to be less valued. And the day that my teacher told me that he thought I could be in the Met in five years, was the day I quit. I wanted to act. That said… it was a child and I missed it. Nothing feels like singing. Especially opera where your whole body is vibrating and naked with sound. I have had teachers and therapists who have kept me singing for them, which I deeply appreciate. Also, I brought it back in a play I wrote and performed. I put my favorite aria at the climax. Leaving singing was also in response to a fear that if people heard me sing, they might think of me as a singer and not an actor. I do have sadness that I didn’t keep training, but it’s also a bit bizarre to be a struggling artist paying for a hobby that you are good enough at to make into a career. That said… I still have vocal cords… so yes… maybe we’ll see it develop again yet!
I did choose to let dance take over for a couple of years. The first year I won a competition, I had made the choice to “be a dancer”. To give the little girl in me a year of fulfilling that fantasy.
Congratulations on winning your pole dancing competitions. Please tell us more about the competition, how you got involved in pole dancing and the training needed to be a champion.
Oh my. How did I get involved? I was in an acting class at a studio run by a couple. The woman was a social dance instructor, but when she handed me her card, it said “strippercize for every woman”. I had heard that there were pole classes in LA, but it hadn’t really spread yet. This woman had been an exotic dancer and was teaching a small group of friends on Tuesday nights. It was the perfect storm. I had been in a damaging relationship that had emptied me out, and here was a dance form (again… always wanted to be a dancer) that brought back my sensuality and woman-ness, along with the playful freedom of little four years on me on the monkey bars. My body got stronger, my confidence, and my relationships with women.
I got into competing through a couple of these women. We had formed a troupe “The Flying Foxes”, and they had both decided to compete. They roped me in, stopped after that year and I kept going!
Training for competition is, at the basic level, just like any athlete I imagine. My life basically revolved around being healthy, which meant eating well, sleeping, and training like a crazy person. Right before a comp, my training looked like three days on, one day off. The “on” days meant three to four hours in the studio working on strength, specific “nemesis” moves, choreography and/or freestyle, and stamina. I also did contortion style flexibility training, and to top it off, rollerbladed for half an hour to and from the studio. My “off” days were cardio and more flexibility. Honestly, I overtrained. After the first competition I won, I lost half my hair. Every pole dancer who competes knows the moment on sobbing on the floor. And I’m sure every athlete has a version of that.
Actually, the first time I competed, I had a big bandaid over my chin because I’d fallen five days before and had gotten stitches. The big rubber bandaid was to make sure I didn’t open back up while I was in the air. I guess I’m a bit hardcore? But really all the pole women are. There isn’t a part of you left out if you want to be good.
Back to acting, can you share with us your fondest experiences of the film industry so far, and how they have shaped your appreciation and approach to working?
Back to acting! Yes! It’s funny because the first thought that came to me was really such a small moment. It was the wrap party for Gangland Undercover, a series I was in based on the true story of a meth dealer who was caught and given the choice between 25 years in prison or going undercover with the most dangerous biker gang in California. I played the gang president’s wife. Paulino Nunes was my husband, for which I was so lucky. He was amazing to work with. The 1st AD was an angel on that set. Truly. Hire Dale MacLean! Overall, it was such a ride.
In the midst of everyone connecting and discussing how proud they were for what we’d achieved with the quality and heart of the show, I was approached by a man I hadn’t met before with such vulnerability and openness. He wanted to tell me that it was a pleasure watching me and that he was touched by my work. He was the editor. This man who had sat in front of a computer, with all of us to play with, took a moment to tell me that it was difficult to cut out some of my work because he had been really affected by it. For some reason… that might have been the highest, most sincere compliment I have received. A stranger, for all intents and purposes, who’d “seen” me. Not a very humble answer, I guess. That I loved hearing that my work was good… but for me, it was again, about the intimacy. That he was watching all of us in our rawness, and he was affected enough to approach me in that way. Yeah… doesn’t sound like a humble example. Truthfully though, the group dynamic and how everyone came together on that show was also really powerful. It wasn’t a big budget, but everyone involved put their hearts into it. Bikers and a meth cook. Haha.
My approach to the work itself has been influenced by so many teachers, and so many factors, it is difficult to carve down to an easy answer. I start with impressions. With empathy for the character and the situation…. how it lives within the story as a whole. If I am working on something I understand inherently, I tend to go with my instinct and simply connect with the other actors. If it’s further away from me, I research, I break down the script in a pretty involved, detailed manner if it feels right, and on the day, I drop it all and try to be “human” in the moment. So, my process can be quite simple or quite painstaking, project depending. My ultimate goal is for the work to be invisible. To be alive in front of people in service to the story and hopefully the humanity within it.
Notable recent credits include Private Eyes, Gangland Undercover, Frankie Drake Mysteries, and Ginny and Georgia. How do choose your roles and please share with us your methods for preparing for the various characters you portray.
Yes. So… to be more specific, and I can bring in some theatre work I’ve done into this as well. I was raised upper-middle class in an oil town in the sticks. That makes for a pretty sheltered and specific experience. When roles come up with some grit, and edge, I get really excited. And terrified. Because one of the most important things to me is to honor the lives of those who are watching, hopefully, with recognition of themselves, or their lives on the screen. It’s a bit generous to say I “choose” these roles because a lot of the casting process is out of our hands. But… I can work on tapping into grittier parts of myself, research different lifestyles, expand my range so that when the opportunities come up, I’m ready. Or… as in the case with “Risk Everything”, a George F Walker play I did a couple of years ago, I almost turned it down because I thought I was so far from the character. But then fought hard to get the lower class struggle into my body, and to understand what the thought process and background for her is so that I can be “myself” from a different life within the work. I have turned down some work, which is incredibly difficult to do. Some really high-level projects. But some of what was being asked of me was outside of what I wanted to bring to the world, so, I let them go.
I”m going off-topic. How do I prepare? It’s changed over time. I feel like the work is a living thing that shifts as we do. Some actors have a very “I do what I do” way, but I like to keep myself a little looser, or less formed in my process. I feel things out. I have gotten to study with absolutely incredible teachers. The late Jacqueline McLintock, who taught Meisner for many years was a huge influence. When I say “my teacher” I’m talking about her. From her, I learned to listen and respond. To be in the moment, as cliche as that has become, that’s really the thing. One character says or does something, the other character responds and has their own action, and then somewhere in the middle… is the moment. And really, that’s what we watch. Not a “performance” exactly, but that intangible truth where two characters or elements in a story collide and spark.
Another teacher I’ve been lucky to train with, John Strasberg (Lee Strasberg’s son) talks about dreaming yourself into the role. It sounds airy-fairy, but it’s back to empathy and understanding. To imagine everything about the character, situation, story, environment… everything. Another teacher would call the same thing “being an investigator”. Same thing, different words.
And… another teacher of mine was heavy into structure. So I have that at my fingertips when I need it as well. Understanding of story, breaking down the actions, knowing who you are talking to, why, and what happens if you don’t get what you want.
Ultimately, we want to feel and learn. Sometimes escape. But mostly, I believe, we want to know we aren’t alone.
How do you prepare for that? By knowing yourself as well as you can.
You have written, produced, performed the play ‘Peeler’ and are now in the process to make it a feature film. Please tell us more about the project and share with us, in your own words, what viewers should expect.
Yes. So, this play was the result of me saying that actors should create their own work. I said that for years, and then I heard myself saying it and realized I wasn’t doing it. So… I entered my name into the Fringe lottery and got in. Suddenly, I had to write something. My teacher, Jacqueline, had been going on about how I should do a “pole opera” – which I took as a jumping-off point. I wrote it during a time where I had left my agent and returned to theatre. Getting back to Shakespeare and deep rehearsal explorations. It was wonderful and empowering, but I missed film.
The irony is, I had left film because everything I was auditioning for was sexy. And often sex workers. I didn’t want to be pigeon-holed, and some of the audition experiences were borderline #metoo worthy, so I stepped away. Ironic that my return was by writing a play about an exotic dancer. But it was on my own terms and explored what sexuality and being a woman means in a society where we are often seen and sold as commodities, in contrast to the sacred feminine that was worshipped eons ago. Now is the right time to bring this story to the screen!
What viewers should expect is to have their expectations upended. To get a peek into a world that we all create and support, and yet most of us bring a great deal of shame and judgment into it. We judge (and shame) sex workers, while at the same time, uphold other forms of unbalance in society that harm everyone. Yes… I”m talking about the patriarchy and how it creates pain and distance between men and women, men and men, women and women… that we all want connection. And so… what is that? What is the missing piece? I’ll leave it there.
Are you working on any other projects?
I am definitely working on a project at the moment. Bringing the story full circle again to the play. It’s been interesting times in the film and tv world. So much movement and change – so much of it necessary and important, but there has been a feeling of instability in the process. Speaking for me, at least. It’s a tough racket, as they say. Right? If you can do anything else, do that? And I’m very stubborn. Even through times when the work feels slim or uninspiring, I hold on. But, I had been finding it difficult for a while. My Mother passed three years ago, and that seemed to bring with it, a dry period, which is unfortunate because if there was a time I felt like I needed the work, it was then. And that was followed by the pandemic, which to me, has been a great gift. An opportunity to go inward without the pressure of busy culture, and explore who we are. So, my projects, other than writing, have been me, lately.
And all of a sudden, an opportunity arrives from LA. A friend reached out about a feature she’s in and helping with casting. I sent in a self-tape as a looooongshot. In general, it’s a challenge to be taken seriously as a strong contender for big projects. Also, to work in the States, you need a visa. Being cast by a production who’s willing to negotiate a visa is a unicorn. Like winning the lottery. I don’t know how often it happens but… I personally know one person it had happened to. And now, I’ve won the lottery. Right when I have been facing the edge of my frustration and relationship with the industry, I get pulled back in. XD I’ve been cast in an American movie. I will be flying to LA in just under a month to shoot. It’s truly the American Dream.
The project is called Fons Vivus, and it’s a mostly female cast, written and directed by a woman, about women coming together in a very unexpected way. And… it’s kind of a dark comedy/drama. It’s got a bit of edge, a bit of silly, a bit of difficult truth, and I’m really excited! I have a feeling about this project, that women who see it will really respond. And then… who knows? I’ll have a three-year work visa. I’m looking at moving over there and jumping into the big pool!
Where can we follow your activities?
Currently, I’m mostly old school Facebook (yes, and I still miss MySpace):
My Instagram (which I am solemnly swearing I will stop neglecting):
My Workbooklive:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kiran.friesen/
Images, courtesy of Kiran Friesen. Headshots by photographer Jessica Rose
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