Bluenosers (Nova Scotians)
People (actors, musicians, etc.) who were born in and/or raised in, or had family members from the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
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- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Elliot Page was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Martha Philpotts, a teacher, and Dennis Page, a graphic designer. Page wanted to start acting at an early age and attended the Neptune Theater School. They began their career at the age of 10 on the award-winning television series Pit Pony (1999), for which they received a Gemini nomination and a Young Artist Awards nomination. Later, Page appeared in Marion Bridge (2002), which won the award for Best Canadian First Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival. They won a Gemini Award for their role of Lilith in the first season of ReGenesis (2004), a one-hour drama for TMN/Movie Central, and for the cable feature, Ghost Cat (2004), for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series. In addition, Page appeared in the cult hit TV series Trailer Park Boys (2001).
As the lead in David Slade's Hard Candy (2005), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Page garnered much praise for their tour de force performance as a 14-year-old who meets a 30-year-old photographer on the Internet and then looks to expose him as a pedophile. Films that followed included the title role of Bruce McDonald's The Tracey Fragments (2007); An American Crime (2007), also starring Catherine Keener; and the third installation of the X-Men franchise, X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), where Page played Kitty Pryde.
With their breakout role in Jason Reitman's hit comedy Juno (2007), about an offbeat teenager who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, Page received Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe and SAG Best Actress nominations, and won the Independent Spirit Award for their performance. They followed up that turn with the lead in Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, the roller-derby comedy-drama Whip It (2009), Christopher Nolan's psychological thriller Inception (2010), the independent film Peacock (2010), and the dark comedy Super (2010), opposite Rainn Wilson and Liv Tyler.
Page co-starred alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Alison Pill, Alec Baldwin, and Greta Gerwig in the Woody Allen ensemble comedy To Rome with Love (2012), and appeared in the thriller The East (2013), a story centered on a contract worker (played by Brit Marling) tasked with infiltrating an anarchist group, only to find herself falling for its leader (played by Alexander Skarsgård).Born and raised in Halifax, NS.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Stephen McHattie was born on 3 February 1947 in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is an actor and director, known for Pontypool (2008), The Fountain (2006) and Watchmen (2009). He is married to Lisa Houle. They have three children. He was previously married to Meg Foster.Born in Antigonish, NS.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Denny Doherty was born and reared in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and began his musical career there in a local rock band, The Hepsters, while working in a pawn shop. He had started singing in public at age 15, on a dare by performing "Love Letters In The Sand" in a skating rink-turned-dance-hall. In 1959 he formed his first folk trio, The Colonials, and after changing their name to The Halifax Three, signed a recording contract in New York. After recording two albums, the trio broke up, and Denny linked with Cass Elliot as a member of her group, The Big Three, which later became The Mugwumps, the first folk-rock group. Cass and Denny later joined John and Michelle Phillips of The New Journeymen to become The Mamas and The Papas. In 1965 the group relocated to Los Angeles where, over the next four years, they turned out a score of top-selling albums and singles featuring Doherty and Elliot's lead vocals, including "California Dreamin'," "Monday Monday" and "I Saw Her Again." Upon the collapse of the group, Denny recorded two solo albums, and material for an unreleased third. (One of these albums reunited him with former Mamas Michelle and Cass as they sang background vocals for 1974's Waiting For A Song.).
Doherty played the lead in Andy Warhol and John Phillips' Man on the Moon on Broadway in 1975 and Doherty was cast in The Irish Art Centre's Juno and the Paycock. In 1978 he returned to Canada and hosted "Denny's Sho" on Canadian television. During the 1980s he reunited with fellow Papa, John Phillips in The New Mamas and Papas and toured the United States as well as Europe and Asia. Having returned to home in Canada, Doherty's many stage credits there include North Mountain Breakdown, Needfire and Paul Ledoux's Fire as well as The Secret Garden. Film/TV credits include "Pit Pony" and The Harbourmaster in "Theodore Tugboat." Denny was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1996; The Mamas and The Papas were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2001. In recent years, Doherty told the tale of his life with The Mamas and The Papas, in Dream A Little Dream which ran in Halifax, Toronto, and finally Off-Broadway in 2003. Doherty was married briefly to Linda Woodward in the early seventies with whom he had a daughter, Jessica. He lived outside Toronto with his other two children, Emberly and John, to whose mother Jeannette, Doherty was married for twenty years until her death in 1998. He died on January 19, 2007, following kidney problems. (www.dennydoherty.com)Born in Halifax, NS. He was famous in his younger years as a part of the band The Mamas & The Papas.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Mike Smith was born and raised in Thorburn, Nova Scotia. He started playing hockey at the age of four but showed early signs of musical genius when he learned to play guitar at the age of seven. Continuing with both hobbies for the majority of his life, Mike eventually gave up hockey to concentrate on being a musician.
He attended St.F.X. University in Antigonish where he earned an Advanced Major in English. In 1992, Mike's career in music began to take off. He started playing guitar and was one of the principal songwriters in the band Sandbox. the group quickly signed a record deal with EMI in Canada and Nettwerk in the U.S. Nominated for a Juno Award, East Coast Music Awards and a Casby Award, Sandbox released two albums with EMI and Nettwerk - Bionic and A Murder In The Glee Club.
When Sandbox broke up in 1998 Mike began working as a location sound mixer on film and TV. He was hired to mix the original Trailer Park Boys black and white movie in 1999 where director Mike Clattenburg discovered him doing the 'Bubbles' character on set for the crew. Clattenburg saw that the character had some very lovable qualities and decided to write him into the upcoming Trailer Park Boys TV series. Never having acted before Smith decided to accept the offer but also remained on as the series sound mixer until Season 3.
Since the rise of Trailer Park Boys, Mike has been in numerous music videos with the likes of Rush, The Tragically Hip, Snow and George Canyon and toured Canada, the US, Mexico, Australia and Japan (including a show at the legendary Budokan Arena in Tokyo) with rock legends Guns N Roses with front man and long-time friend Axl Rose.
In 2010, along with his Trailer Park Boys co-stars Robb Wells and John Paul Tremblay, Mike is writing, producing and starring in the comedy series 'The Drunk And On Drugs Happy Funtime Hour', a half hour comedy set in the town of Port Cockerton where a kids show goes horribly wrong when a powerful hallucinogen is accidentally given to the cast and crew.Best known as Bubbles in Trailer Park Boys, he was born in Thorburn, near New Glasgow, NS.- Actor
- Casting Department
- Casting Director
John Dunsworth was born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, not far from the sea where he would spend much of his time on his yacht when not working. John was one of Halifax's most venerable and revered actors, appearing in countless CBC radio dramas and held leading roles in over 25 Neptune Theatre productions. In 1970, long before the days of waterfront renewal, John convinced the city of Halifax to lease to him a run-down old building by the shipyards which he turned into Pier One Theatre - Halifax's first and arguably its most successful alternative theatre company.
John first met Mike Clattenburg in the mid-1990s when he auditioned for a small role in Mike's short, One Last Shot. Halfway through shooting, John's small role blossomed into a leading part - a part that garnered him a Best Performance award from the Atlantic Film Festival. From there, John developed that role into the character Jim Lahey, the trailer park supervisor on the series Trailer Park Boys.
John's final acting credits include "Trailer Park Boys" (2001-2018), short film George (2018), and "Sir John A. And the Curse of the Anti-Quenched" (2017)
Beyond acting, John was an avid bridge player, holding master points. He also holds, until somebody proves otherwise, the Internet Scrabble record for having three 7-letter words in a row. Around town, John was easy to spot. He drove an old truck with a thousand pound winch that he would use to hauling granite. In 1987, John founded Filmworks Casting where he worked as Halifax's most successful casting director. Prior to that, John worked in the transportation industry, driving a cab for three years and working the CNR trains from Halifax and Sydney.Born in Bridgewater, NS.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Joel Plaskett is a singer-songwriter from Halifax, Nova Scotia whose music and lyrics have a distinctly Canadian flavor.
Joel was a member of the legendary Canadian East Coast band, Thrush Hermit. Formed in 1992, they first came to major attention at the same time as other Halifax acts like Sloan, The Super Friendz, and Eric's Trip.
Thrush Hermit called it quits in 1999. Plaskett then went on to form The Joel Plaskett Emergency, who released the albums "In Need of Medical Attention", "Down at the Khyber" and "Truthfully, Truthfully".
Plaskett continues to live in Halifax, ignoring the bright lights of Toronto.This folk singer was born in Dartmouth, NS.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
The towering presence of Canadian actor Donald Sutherland is often noticed, as are his legendary contributions to cinema. He has appeared in almost 200 different shows and films. He is also the father of renowned actor Kiefer Sutherland, among others.
Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, to Dorothy Isobel (McNichol) and Frederick McLea Sutherland, who worked in sales and electricity. He has Scottish, as well as German and English, ancestry. Sutherland worked several different jobs - he was a radio DJ in his youth - and was almost set on becoming an engineer after graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in engineering. However, he also graduated with a degree in drama, and he chose to abandon becoming an engineer in favour of an actor.
Sutherland's first roles were bit parts and consisted of such films as the horror film Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) which starred Christopher Lee. He was also appearing in episodes of TV shows such as "The Saint" and "Court Martial". Sutherland's break would come soon, though, and it would come in the form of a war film in which he was barely cast.
The reason he was barely cast was because he had been a last-minute replacement for an actor that had dropped out of the film. The role he played was that of the dopey but loyal Vernon Pinkley in the war film The Dirty Dozen (1967). The film also starred Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and Telly Savalas. The picture was an instant success as an action/war film, and Sutherland played upon this success by taking another role in a war film: this was, however, a comedy called M*A*S*H (1970) which landed Sutherland the starring role alongside Elliott Gould and Tom Skerritt. This is now considered a classic among film goers, and the 35-year old actor was only getting warmed up.
Sutherland took a number of other roles in between these two films, such as the theatrical adaptation Oedipus the King (1968), the musical Joanna (1968) and the Clint Eastwood-helmed war comedy Kelly's Heroes (1970). It was Kelly's Heroes (1970) that became more well-known, and it reunited Sutherland with Telly Savalas. 1970 and 1971 offered Sutherland a number of other films, the best of them would have to be Klute (1971). The film, which made Jane Fonda a star, is about a prostitute whose friend is mysteriously murdered. Sutherland received no critical acclaim like his co-star Fonda (she won an Oscar) but his career did not fade.
Moving on from Klute (1971), Sutherland landed roles such as the lead in the thriller Lady Ice (1973), and another lead in the western Alien Thunder (1974). These films did not match up to "Klute"'s success, though Sutherland took a supporting role that would become one of his most infamous and most critically acclaimed. He played the role of the murderous fascist leader in the Bernardo Bertolucci Italian epic 1900 (1976). Sutherland also gained another memorable role as a marijuana-smoking university professor in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) among other work that he did in this time.
Another classic role came in the form of the Robert Redford film, Ordinary People (1980). Sutherland portrays an older father figure who must deal with his children in an emotional drama of a film. It won Best Picture, and while both the supporting stars were nominated for Oscars, Sutherland once again did not receive any Academy Award nomination. He moved on to play a Nazi spy in a film based on Ken Follett's book "Eye of the Needle" and he would star alongside Al Pacino in the commercial and critical disaster that was Revolution (1985). While it drove Al Pacino out of films for four years, Sutherland continued to find work. This work led to the dramatic, well-told story of apartheid A Dry White Season (1989) alongside the legendary actor Marlon Brando.
Sutherland's next big success came in the Oliver Stone film JFK (1991) where Sutherland plays the chilling role of Mister X, an anonymous source who gives crucial information about the politics surrounding President Kennedy. Once again, he was passed over at the Oscars, though Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for his performance as Clay Shaw. Sutherland went on to appear in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Shadow of the Wolf (1992), and Disclosure (1994).
The new millennium provided an interesting turn in Sutherland's career: reuniting with such former collaborators as Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones, Sutherland starred in Space Cowboys (2000). He also appeared as the father figure to Nicole Kidman's character in Cold Mountain (2003) and Charlize Theron's character in The Italian Job (2003). He has also made a fascinating, Oscar-worthy performance as the revolutionist Mr. Thorne in Land of the Blind (2006) and also as a judge in Reign Over Me (2007). Recently, he has joined forces with his son Rossif Sutherland and Canadian comic Russell Peters with the new comedy The Con Artist (2010), as well as acting alongside Jamie Bell and Channing Tatum in the sword-and-sandal film The Eagle (2011). Sutherland has also taken a role in the remake of Charles Bronson's film The Mechanic (1972).
Donald Sutherland has made a lasting legacy on Hollywood, whether portraying a chilling and horrifying villain, or playing the older respectable character in his films. A true character actor, Sutherland is one of Canada's most well-known names and will hopefully continue on being so long after his time.Though born in Saint John, NB, he lived some of his childhood in Bridgewater, NS.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Sarah McLachlan was born on 28 January 1968 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She is a music artist and actress, known for Charlotte's Web (2006), Sarah McLachlan: Possession, Version 2 (1993) and Toy Story 2 (1999). She was previously married to Ashwin Sood.Born in the Halifax region, NS.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Anne Murray is a major recording star. She has won numerous Grammy Awards, American Music Awards, as well as a number of Juno Awards in her native Canada. Anne lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and two children. She has sold over 24 million records. She is known for such hits as "Snowbird", "Danny's Song", "You Won"t See Me", "You Needed Me", "What Would It Take" etc... Anne tours on a regular basis but limits her dates as her family comes first.Born in Springhill, NS.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Heather Rankin was born in Mabou, Nova Scotia, the eleventh of twelve children. In 1989, after graduating with a BFA in Theatre from Acadia University, Heather and her siblings, John Morris, Raylene, Jimmy and Cookie, recorded their first record The Rankin Family. Over the next ten years The Rankin Family released five full albums, a five song EP and two compilation albums. They toured frequently across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and in Australia and New Zealand. The went on to win six Juno Awards, three Canadian Country Music Awards, an American Country Music Television Award and fifteen East Coast Music Awards. Combined sales of their recordings exceeded 1.5 million copies.
The Rankin Family disbanded in 1999 and the following year Heather and her sisters recorded background vocals for Carly Simon's record The Bedroom Tapes. She then starred in several musicals and plays including Jesus Christ Superstar at Neptune Theatre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, The Piper at Factory Theatre in Toronto and Bingo by Daniel MacIvor at Neptune Theatre, for which she was nominated for a 2012 Robert Merritt Award. She has also appeared in several films including Marion Bridge and The Hanging Garden.
Her debut solo record, A Fine Line is available April 1st, 2016.Best known as part of the fiddling family The Rankins, she was born in Mabou, Cape Breton Island, NS.- Composer
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Rita MacNeil was born on 28 May 1944 in Big Pond, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. She was a composer and actress, known for Last Night (1998), Candy Mountain (1987) and Stars in Their Eyes (1990). She died on 16 April 2013 in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada.Born in Big Pond, Cape Breton Island, NS.- Stephen Arbuckle is a Canadian born actor who began his performing arts career in theatre in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Growing up in Donkin, a small community sitting on the edge of the Cape Breton Island coastline, he decided early on that a career in fishing was definitely not in the cards (although he enjoys it), and to grow as an actor he would leave home to pursue a career in film and television.
In 2003 Arbuckle moved to Toronto where he landed the lead roll in the short film Todd and the Book of Pure Evil. This experience opened doors for Arbuckle to secure spots in dozens of national and international commercials for heavy hitters like Sony, BMW, Coors Light, and Pepsi.
Arbuckle continued to pursue interesting and challenging roles that would provide invaluable experience along the way. These opportunities also provided a platform to work with some of the most accomplished television and film stars of today such as Viggo Mortensen, David Cronenberg and Michael Madson.
2010 was a pivotal year for Arbuckle, securing a role as a regular on ABC's Happy Town alongside Sam Neil and Steven Weber. Also in 2010, he filmed a guest spot on the pilot of CBS's Blue Bloods with Donnie Wahlburg and Tom Selleck and then coming full-circle, back to his origins in film, Arbuckle began shooting to appear as a regular on the Todd and the Book of Pure Evil series on the Space Channel.
When not working Arbuckle likes to stay up on emerging talent coming from Cape Breton. An increasing number of musicians, comedians, actors, and film industry professionals from his home on the east coast are stopping in Toronto and Arbuckle takes every chance to get out and support them and their work.Born in the small fishing village of Donkin, Cape Breton, NS. - Writer
- Director
- Producer
Mike Clattenburg was born in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is known for Trailer Park Boys (2001), Black Jesus (2014) and Moving Day (2012).Born in Cole Harbour, NS.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Gerry Dee, the son of Scottish immigrant parents, was born in Scarborough and raised in Toronto. He played Varsity hockey at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia and become a high-school physical-education teacher. He was the first Canadian to ever win the prestigious San Francisco Comedy Competition. He is a two handicap at golf.Although born in Scarborough, ON, he played hockey at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, NS.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Sydney Scotia recently wrapped a series lead role in the Crave series, PILLOW TALK. She is best known for her role as Geneva in the YTV/Netflix comedy, SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED; for which she won two Joey Awards, and earned a Leo Award nomination for Best Comedic Actress during its three season run. In May 2016, her short film I DARE YOU (producer/actor) screened at the Cannes Film Festival, earning her a fourth Joey Award nomination. Sydney then went on to star in the Netflix series, REBOOT: THE GUARDIAN CODE, based on the cult classic cartoon. Her other credits include The CW's CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND, and Hallmark's, EAT DRINK & BE MARRIED. This year she will make her theatrical debut in FRANK & PENELOPE, in theaters June 3rd. Season two of PILLOW TALK to begin filming September 2022.
She pursues a career behind the camera as well with her feature length documentary, THIS HITS HOME winning audience choice at the Boston Film Festival. Her most recent short films DEAD END and JANE are to be released in 2022 after attending festivals. She recently won Best Female Director at the Vancouver Independent Film Festival.
As a dancer, she danced competitively for 8 years and in 2008, she performed in Hong Kong with Olympic gold medalist, Olga Korbut. She continues to write and release original music through AWAL distribution (Spotify, Apple Music).Although born in Minnesota and now living in Arizona, her parents were from Sydney, NS - hence her unusual name.