Skye reaches for new heights in martial-arts, sci-fi show
Award-winning film, starring Saskatchewan-born actress, hopes to become series down the line
BY MELISSA HANK, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 20, 2014
Sera-Lys McArthur, left, and Olivia Cheng in Skye &
Photograph by: Mamaoo Pictures, APTN , Postmedia News
SKYE & CHANG
Tuesday, APTN
It's taken a while, but Sera-Lys McArthur is finally where the action is. Literally. The Saskatchewan-born actress stars in the martial-arts sci-fiprogram Skye & Chang, an innovative and award-winning TV movie that could become a full-blown series down the line.
With two butt-kicking females - one aboriginal, one Chinese - in the lead roles, Skye & Chang doesn't look or feel like anything else on TV. McArthur plays Skye Daniels, who runs a dojo and stunt-double business with her buddy Emily Chang (Olivia Cheng). But, as these things go, they're soon drawn into a sinister plot crafted by a secret society bent on global destruction.
The movie won the award for best short live feature at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco.
"I loved it pretty much right away," says former Arctic Air star McArthur of the Vancouver-filmed project directed by Cree/Metis filmmaker Loretta Sara Todd. "I really love action films and TV shows. I was a big Xena fan when I was growing up, so it was basically a dream come true for me to even be considered for the role."
McArthur's character may not wield a chakram like Lucy Lawless's character in Xena: Warrior Princess, but she does have a superpower: Time-slipping. "People who have seen the pilot say it's almost like you're having a vision, and that's definitely a native (American) thing," she says.
"You go on vision quests in aboriginal spirituality ceremonies, and it can seem like your consciousness is opened up to a new state of awareness, which is essentially what the time slips are."
"She's not actually leaving the plane that she's on, but she feels like she's in a different reality that has been revealed to her. It's almost like an intense migraine." Also intense: the action sequences in Skye & Chang. The show opens with a punch or five, leads into a series of chases and explosions and ends with Skye and Emily pitted against a couple of darksuited attackers, amid the chaos of an outdoor concert to boot.
"I didn't have a big martial-arts base to begin with, but I always liked it. As a kid I did some taekwondo, but I haven't for a really long time," says McArthur, who performed some of her character's stunts. "(For Skye & Chang), I did about three months of pretty solid martial-arts training, but it wasn't like I got to go into the studio with a private teacher every day."
Though McArthur has appeared in the miniseries The Englishman's Boy and the film Hard Core Logo 2, she thanks the CBC show Arctic Air for helping her land Skye & Chang - she played assistant cargo manager Hailey Martin for three seasons before it was cancelled in March.
"It's taken my career to a new level of visibility. Now, I'm that girl from Arctic Air," she says. "It meant a lot for me to be involved in a show that was multicultural and held native people in lead roles, and in a positive light.
"I think just like Skye & Chang, it will be something that native youth can look up to for role models in the media, which we really didn't have a lot of when I was growing up. It's nice to see more diverse characters coming out, and I think Arctic Air did a lot for that."
Reply With Quote