TORONTO - April Telek has had a successful acting career, with a long list of TV acting credits to her name. But when the former Miss Canada read the script for the new film "Amazon Falls," she knew she'd reached a turning point.
"(I thought): OK, this is the best I've ever gotten to (audition) for," Telek, 37, recalled in a recent telephone interview from Vancouver.
"What if I get it? I thought, if I get it and it's awful, then I have to quit the business. Honest to God, I'll never get another chance to play a character like (this) again. So if I get it and it sinks, then I have to quit the business, but if I get it and ... we do well then I could have all new legs on my career."
Turns out Telek doesn't need to quit acting after all.
"Amazon Falls" has received kudos, in particular for Telek's portrayal of Jana, an aging B-movie actress struggling to cope with Hollywood's youth-obsessed culture.
The film received good notices at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, and made Canada's Top 10 list at the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival. Telek, meanwhile, received an artistic merit award from Vancouver's Women in Film and Television.
"Amazon Falls" has a personal feel to it, and for good reason. It's based on the experiences of Vancouver-based director Katrin Bowen, who moved to Los Angeles as a teen and ended up working as a B-movie actress ("Amazon Falls" includes footage from some of the films she appeared in).
Co-starring "X-Files" alum William B. Davis and Tom Braidwood, as well as Ben Ratner ("Da Vinci's City Hall"), "Amazon Falls" shows Hollywood's gritty side while also highlighting Jana's inherent goodness.
With a philandering boyfriend and a dead-end waitressing job, Jana (whose career high point has been a series of low-budget "Amazon" movies) seems to be stuck in a rut. And yet, she persists, her hope rekindled with each audition, however dubious the role.
The story struck a chord with Telek, whose previous acting credits include "Robson Arms" and the acclaimed A&E movie "Flight 93."
"This is a business that is so full of facade and 'Amazon Falls' removes a lot of the facade," she said.
"Jana spent so much time being part of that, and trying to always uphold the facade and this vision of perfection, and we can't do it, we can't all do it," she said.
"I thought that is such a ... telling tale because really, as an actress, I can do everything. I can work my body out to be a size four and I can still be on a show and they're like: 'You know, you're getting a little chubby.' And I'm like: 'Really? I'm a size four!"'
Telek, of course, is well-used to such scrutiny. She won the title of Miss Canada in 1994, and although she has good things to say about that experience, she initially shied away from referencing the title when it came to acting jobs.
That said, she thinks her pageant experience helped her win the role of Jana.
"Jana had the glamour-puss quality that a lot of beauty queens have," said Telek.
"Quite often, I tone that down to play different characters. Jana gave me the licence to be very glamour-pussy and sort of hoity-toity in her walk and a little more pristine in the way that she spoke and precious in her words."
The film is dedicated to Lana Clarkson, whom Bowen met during her California acting stint. In 2003, Clarkson was shot at the home of music producer Phil Spector, who was later convicted of her murder.
Bowen has said that she was taken under the wing of Clarkson and a group of other women during her time in Hollywood.
That type of sisterhood is reflected in "Amazon Falls," and Telek says she, too, has been buoyed by a good gang of friends.
"I have had an incredible group of peer actresses who are my dear, dear friends," she said. "We've always been as supportive with each other as a spouse would be."
With upcoming appearances on "Endgame" and "Supernatural," Telek seems upbeat about her career.
And she's effusive about the boost that "Amazon Falls" has given it: "It really has changed my life."
"Amazon Falls" opens in Toronto on March 18, and Vancouver on April 15.
