Canadian actor and singer Cory Lee is all set to celebrate her best holiday season, this year. And the reason is a 90-minute Christmas movie.
Nope, not Elf, Home Alone or Spirited, but a new romantic drama featuring Lee in the lead. Baking all the Way, directed by Yannick Denis Bisson (who is also the lead actor in the movie), “was a dream come true" for Lee.
The movie will be released in select theatres across Canada — New West's Landmark Cinemas is one — for one night on Dec. 5. Following which, it will premiere on Super Channel.
Lee plays the role of a restaurateur whose search for a particular gingerbread recipe leads her to finding love.
“Just getting the role was everything I had been aiming for, striving for, working hard for. It was a bucket-list moment.”
The first time she watched the trailer of the show was in late October at her home in Vancouver — "It was everything, literally everything I had been working towards. I definitely cried," she said over a call from Toronto.
Though Lee shifted to Toronto for work in 2006, she remembers spending her teen years in New West and Surrey, and walking along "a string of wedding dress stores" (referring to the businesses on Front Street), and "performing in a nightclub right by the SkyTrain" in New West.
She plans to travel to the West Coast again for the holidays and to visit some of her favourite local eateries including Tacofino in Kitsilano, Ahn and Chi, and Meet on Main Street, Minerva’s Restaurant in Kerrisdale, and Toshi Sushi, among others.
But what ranks as her top comfort food is not cookies or cakes but white rice. "Growing up half-Chinese half-German, my mom did most of the cooking. I was raised on Chinese food. So white rice is like my happy place."
Here are some excerpts from the interview:
Your role in Baking all the Way is of a pastry chef who travels all the way from Chicago to Wisconsin to find the perfect gingerbread recipe for her recipe book. But do you like gingerbread in real life?
I do. I love food. I love all the cookies. And I do like gingerbread.
We did a lot of baking in my household growing up, but we didn't really make a lot of gingerbread. I would say we made a lot of shortbread and sugar cookies.
So, I wouldn't say making gingerbread is something that I would do every year, but I definitely love making cookies in the shape of gingerbread (using a cookie cutter), if that makes sense.
Do you have a go-to recipe book IRL?
I do and I don't depending on what I am making.
The bulk of my cooking is making Asian stir fries. I add whatever veggies I got going on, whatever meat I got going on, spices or whatever… I'm a big fan of black bean sauce, teriyaki, and even soy with a ton of garlic.
You don't need a recipe for that, you just throw in things.
But when you're baking, you have to follow a recipe. I was making a bunch of holiday cookies to give away yesterday. And you kind of have to follow a recipe because if you don't, it doesn't turn out well.
Did you have to do some homework before playing the role of a popular restaurateur?
When I have the time, I am a very good cook. So, when I read the script, I felt like I was pretty knowledgeable in everything they were talking about. So I didn't do too much research.
For me, leading into a movie, it's really about making sure I'm off book with my lines because MOW (Movie of the Week, a term that refers to movies 90 minutes or longer, shot for broadcast on television) shoots are really, really fast.
So knowing that I would be in all day from morning to night, and in most of the scenes, I just knew that to be my best self on camera, I had to be off book with the lines as much as possible. I had about 10 days before the shooting. And going into the first day of shooting, I knew the whole movie by heart.
I was nervous! And I was intimidated by all the amazing actors (Yannick Bisson, Cory Lee, Colin Mochrie, Deb McGrath, Jayne Eastwood, Mikaela Bisson among others) in the movie. So I just really, you know, cared.
What was the production like?
MOWs shoot very fast — between like 12 and 15 shoot days. That's like three weeks essentially. So, it's a fast and furious situation. That’s why it's paramount to know all of your lines. Because you aren't really getting as many takes as you would if you were working on say like an American feature film.
But everyday was a blessing, every day was beautiful.
I'm really big on gratitude. So every day before I go to the sets, I list out some of my affirmations and gratitude from the day before, and just appreciate every moment because, as I said, it was a dream come true to just have my first lead.
I also obviously got to eat lots of great baked goods. And there was a super fun snowball fight where I definitely got pelted in the face during the shooting. At the time, I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’, but it’s hilarious in retrospect.
It was a joy. And I hope my joy radiates off of the screen and people enjoy watching it.
You also did the song ‘Suddenly Feels Like Christmas’ for the movie. How was that experience?
On one of the last few days of shooting, Jesse Ikeman, one of the head producers of Vortex that did the movie, asked me if I was into writing a Christmas song for the movie. And I was like, ‘Yeah!’
So, as soon as the movie wrapped up, I kind of wrapped my head around writing a Christmas song.
I'd never written a Christmas song before. So that was fun. I made a playlist of all the Christmas pop songs that I really liked (Christmas songs by Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, Britney Spears, Ariana Grande, and My Grown up Christmas List by Monica were a few).
It's a delicate balance with a Christmas song — of making it feel like a holiday… easy, kinda cheesy, but still, like, cool at the same time.
So I really tried to walk the line, and, hopefully, I achieved it. I actually wrote the song from the perspective of Julia Wilson, the lead character, which is another thing I really wanted to do — just so when it played in the movie, it made as much sense.
Do you enjoy singing or acting more?
Growing up, I was a singer. That was always my main thing… music was everything.
And I definitely have a non-traditional acting route. I was scouted by a big acting agent when I was in elementary school, and I was in a professional musical at the time, because I had started singing. That's kind of what started my acting (career); but I never put all of my eggs in that basket. And it was never my number 1 priority; music was always my number 1 priority.
And when I hit high school, getting a record deal was always my goal because that's what you did back in the early 2000s. The music industry is a very much changed space now, because you can do everything independently where you couldn't before. So it wasn't until I had success with music that acting kind of came calling again.
So when I got the lead role on Instant Star (a musical drama television series) in 2006, it prompted my move from Vancouver to Toronto. That year, literally, my whole life flipped upside down in a positive way and acting became my number 1 thing. Singing is still the love of my life.
And combining both of them is definitely my happiest place.
Lastly, what are your plans for Christmas?
I'm from Vancouver, originally. My parents still live there. We do Christmas big in our house. We always get a real tree. We have lots of amazing, kind of, horrible decorations that we made when we were kids.
So we would make decorations, we would make cookies, we would do all the fun things.
I was blessed with a beautiful upbringing. My parents are still together and in love — which is everything. And I go home every year for Christmas (from Toronto to Vancouver).
So holidays are about being with my family, eating lots of good food and just being happy and together.
You can watch Baking All the Way in Landmark Cinemas New Westminster (800 Carnarvon St.) on Dec. 5, and later on Super Channel.
