shania.funurl.com

Actress Hopes The Real Shania Likes Her
In CBC's Unauthorized Biography Movie

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Wednesday, November 2, 2005
Canadian Press
John McKay

TORONTO (CP) - When she was a cute 13-year-old, Meredith Henderson was sleuthing around YTV as the great-great-grandniece of Sherlock Holmes in the kid mystery series "The Adventures of Shirley Holmes."

At the time the Ottawa native found boys yucky and spoke avidly of plans to become a veterinarian if this acting thing didn't work out. That was 1997. How things change. Now Henderson is all grown up and playing drop-dead-beautiful Canadian music diva Shania Twain in the CBC movie of the week, "Shania: A Life in Eight Albums", premiering next Monday night.

"It was definitely a worry," she concedes when asked if she thought she could make the transition from child actress to adult roles.

"But I've been very, very lucky. I was always able to land a role that really helped me with further steps towards something."

Henderson says it was a gradual process that had her parents more frustrated than she was. Now, after being delayed by the recent CBC lockout, her Shania performance is about to see the light of day.

"You spend however long filming and working with individuals in such tight close quarters, and then you have to wait at the very least six months until the editing process is done and then even longer for release. So it was like 'Oh, c'mon! It's not fair!' "

The film charts the early life of the singing superstar, from age eight (in 1973) to 27 (in 1993), when Eilleen Twain was performing underage in northern Ontario bars and finally caught a break on TV's "The Tommy Hunter Show."

Because it is an unauthorized biography (the credits say "inspired" by Twain's life), there are some noticeable gaps in the storyline. It ends with Shania accepting a phone call from future producer - and husband - Mutt Lange, a call that would change her life forever. But that's another film, perhaps.

Officially, Shania Twain had nothing to do with the project other than to wish Henderson and the crew luck. Producer Phyllis Platt assures no legal issues had been expressed and that Twain had even sent some CDs to the set.

"She was obviously a bit nervous because when somebody takes your life story, it's always hard to tell, if you don't know them, what they're going to do," Henderson says. "I really tried my best to capture her story, but you never know. She's led a really hard life and it's difficult when you're in the eye where your story is public domain. At least people believe that. And I hope very much that she likes it."

If not, the 21-year-old actress adds with a giggle, "she can kick my butt!"

The film was directed by multi-Gemini-winning Jerry Ciccoritti. Shooting on location in Sudbury, Ont., Huntsville, Timmins and Toronto, Ciccoritti has cleverly divided the biopic into eight chapters, each defined by its own colour code and style and identified by its own symbolic album cover title.

Twain's aboriginal connection - her stepfather was Ojibwa - is reflected by sequences shot on the gorgeous Whitefish Lake First Nations reserve near Sudbury where residents gave the crew their full co-operation. Native actor Eric Schweig plays her stepfather and Gordon Tootoosis her grandfather.

There are mystical elements, too, if somewhat cliched. In one scene, young Shania comes eyeball to eyeball in the wilds with a sleek grey wolf. (An almost identical experience was dramatized in CTV's recent Terry Fox movie as Terry was seen hobbling through northern Ontario on the final leg of his ill-fated journey.)

Shania's mother is played by Megan Follows, and Henderson was asked what it was like to have another former child actress - famous for the role of Anne Shirley - as her screen mom.

"Oh my goodness, it was so cool!" she says excitedly. "Megan's just fantastic. Like everybody, I grew up with Anne of Green Gables.

"I was just always so respectful of her as an actress. And I was so excited to be working with one of Canada's best."

Henderson admits, though, that she had not been a country music fan and had never bought Twain's CDs. But she did her homework when cast for the role and checked out some music videos.

"I was, like, 'Wow! Who is this chick? She's got a really good sound' and all that."

Shania is actually played by three actresses, including eight-year-old Reva Timbers and teen Shenae Grimes, a multi-actor strategy also employed in the recent Trudeau miniseries.

Henderson says they figured out common mannerisms for the sake of continuity. And as the youngest of four siblings in real life, she found it neat on the set when people mistook them for real relatives, since they had been cast because of their resemblance to one another.

"So it was kind of nice to sort of have two little sisters."

All three did their own singing vocals - and they weren't dubbed in later, either, but performed live onset before the cameras and microphones, a real technical challenge but one which adds an indefinable authenticity to the scenes.

Since Shania, Henderson has completed a blood-spattered horror movie called Heartstoppers. And one thing is sure. The vet career is off the table.

"Long gone, yeah."

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