Kate Kelton - From fashion runways to runaway hit films, this Villager's star is on the rise. by Dave Gordon

Listen carefully. Can you hear it? In Hollywood circles, they call it "buzz." You know, the kind of stuff industry insiders talk about over smoked salmon pizza at Spago. And this time it involves an up-and-coming local actress who some are calling the next Angelina Jolie.

While Kate Kelton may not yet be a household name, the Village resident is well on her way to stardom. Since making the jump from modeling to acting in 2002's American Psycho II, Kelton has been busy adding credits to an impressive resume, including the teen comedy Harold and Kumar go to White Castle and Canadian director Deepa Mehta's The Republic of Love.

This summer she'll be appearing with Heather Graham (Boogie Nights) in Cake. In the film, which was shot in Toronto, Kelton plays Tralee, the sister of Graham's love interest.

"She's flirtatious and a little bit wild, definitely the younger, more rambunctious sister, always taking little potshots at her on-screen brother (David Sutcliffe) in the name of fun and frivolity Kelton says of her character. The experience of working with Graham was something Kelton enjoyed, even though she on occasion had to terrorize her famous co-star's character.

"Working with Heather, she's a doll," says Kelton, "She can be so utterly present and in the moment on set it's almost frightening. I've been such a fan of hers for such a long time that finding out I was basically hired to intimidate her character was about the biggest compliment I've ever been paid in my life by a casting director."

The cast - which also includes Taye Diggs, (Chicago), Sarah Chalke (Scrubs), Cheryl Hines (Curb Your Enthusiasm), and Sandra Oh (Sideways) - hit it off so well that they hung out during down-time. When they weren't behind the scenes on the movie set, they were often found going out for dinners or seeing films. In one amusing adventure, Kelton and company had a little cinematic kafuffle when going to a screening of the documentary Supersize Me.

"When the projector started to roll, there was no sound. Sandra Oh and I made like quick little film aficionados and immediately shot out of our seats, demanding that the manager start the film again with sound. Cheryl and Heather covered their eyes so they'd not see another frame of the film without sound," she recalls. "We ended up getting the entire audience refunds."

Kelton's natural ease on the big screen is perhaps the result of the fact that her life story sounds a bit like a movie itself.

It starts in Czechoslovakia, where her maternal grandfather was a well-known dissident and artist in the 1960's. Soon after the Soviet tanks rolled in in 1968, it became impossible for people to even congregate peacefully in the streets without arousing suspicion. Several years later, when her mother was pregnant with Kate, her parents signed police papers swearing they were only going on vacation to Paris and would not be back. But they did not return.

Kate was born a month later in a refugee camp in the south of Germany. Her parents worked in American G.I. base camp's kitchen, working one day on and one day off so someone was always able to take care of baby Kate.

Eventually, her parents divorced, and Kelton's mother and her hippie friends took her on several trips across Europe in a VW bus. Those adventures, which covered the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Italy, France, Portugal and Spain have left Kelton with a bevy of stories.

"Yes, there was a time when they left me in the care of an old gypsy woman when they went out in the evening, and yes, I wasn't allowed t touch the monkey," she says.

They also helped her shape the person she's become.

"I have always held close to my heart this strangely nomadic, gypsy-type upbringing," she says. "I think it informs most of the decisions I make to this day about where to live and how to travel."

At the age of seven, Kelton and her mother made their way to Canada and settled in the Toronto area. As a teenager, she attended the Etobicoke School of Arts. Originally, she considered pursuing architecture in university but was dissuaded from that.

"It was the time of the recession, and I was told, 'You know what an architect asks their clients? Would you like fries with that?' I didn't want that," she says. "During the depression, films were the one thing that thrived. People spent their money on escaping into films as a means of survival. So I gambled."

She studies film at Ryerson University, where she focused on art direction and production design. She acted in 14 student films while at Ryerson, and also got to further her love of creating art. Shortly after graduating, she had exhibitions of her prints and paintings at The National Ballet of Canada's group show at the Hummingbird Centre. She's also had solo shows in Toronto and Montreal.

She got her big break into modeling about five years ago, while working as a stylist and illustrator, she received a last-minute phone call to replace a sick model for a photo shoot for the now-defunct Shift magazine.

"It was such a happy accident," Kelton says. "there were five pictures of me. One big splash of Kate."
Tear sheets in hand, Kelton knocked on as many doors as she could until she found an agent who took her on. Just 5'6", finding representation in the modeling biz was a tall order for Kelton, but she persisted and was soon regularly booking print modeling (Flare, Now, Eye), commercials (Molson, Bell, Pampers, Starbucks), and music videos (Jeff Healey, Moxy Fruvous, the Crash Test Dummies).

Perhaps Kelton's best known video role was in Shaggy's "It Wasn't Me." It aired worldwide garnering Kelton recognition for her prominent role and also stirring MTV's interest south of the border. The suits at the music station were clamoring for the director to shoot more of her.

Another gig that has gotten her a lot of attention is as the first non-blond Tic-Tac girl in the history of their televised campaigns. The latest commercial, which will be hopefully also be shown in Canada, the United States, South Africa, Australia, and Isreal, will begin airing March 28.

"I get stares," Kelton says, "You know, a little bit longer than comfortable. People say, 'I know you from somewhere. I don't know where though.' It's a weird life."

Her feature film debut came in American Psycho II, starring Mila Kunis (That 70s Show), William Shatner. Kelton played Clara the Babysitter, and had a bedroom scene with the former captain of the Starship Enterprise.
Now it just so happens that Kelton has what she refers to as a little "elfin pointed ear" and has joked for years about being part Vulcan. When she finally found herself under the covers with Captain Kirk, though, she forgot to mention it.

"In the midst of registering the utter shock of crawling into bed with my on-screen 'boyfriend' Bill," she says, "I neglected to tell the one person in my life it actually applied to. I think I may have sensed he just couldn't take yet another person approaching him with their own personalized Beam-Me-Up-Scotty tale."

Between shoots, Kelton makes her home in the Russel Hill Road area, which she says she adores, and miss when she moves to Los Angeles.

One of the reasons she moved to the area was because Sir Winston Churchill Park and the ravine near-by.
"I felt like I'd discovered some completely 'underground' part of the city, known only to dog walkers or runners," she says.

"You walk up a bit of a slope from a perfectly normal, residential street, and suddenly this huge, breath-taking vista opens up and you see the valley snaking it's way below a bridge, and suddenly you have the feeling that you've just been dropped right in the middle of the African Savannah."

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