She had never appeared in a feature film, never attempted comedy, nor set foot in L.A. But that all changed when Martha MacIsaac walked on to the set of this month’s teen comedy Superbad.
The 22-year-old Prince Edward Island native, who got her start as a child actor playing Emily in the CBC TV series Emily of New Moon, knew the chance to work with Superbad’s superhot comedic tandem — producer Judd Apatow, writer Seth Rogen — would usher in the next phase of her career. The question was, could she be funny?
“I had never done a comedy before so this was a whole new bag of tricks for me,” says the bubbly actor on the line from her home in Toronto. “They do so much improv on all of Judd Apatow’s movies. They hire people who they think are funny because they want their input, they want it to be a team effort, and that was very intimidating to me because I’ve never done comedy. And to improvise with Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, who are both hilarious, that was exciting.”
Superbad focuses on high school seniors and best friends Seth (Hill) and Evan (Cera), two geeky guys who plan a final blowout party to try and score with chicks. MacIsaac plays the sweet-natured Becca, the object of Evan’s affections, and poor Evan is so nervous around her that he doesn’t clue into the fact that she returns his feelings.
So, back to the question, could MacIsaac make people laugh?
“I don’t know that the stuff I did was funny,” she says lightly, “but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Doing improv made me nervous at first, but the things [Cera and Hill] throw at you are so funny that you need to react — and maybe your reaction to what they’re saying is really funny and you laugh, or you might think it’s really awkward and show that.”
MacIsaac moved to Toronto from PEI after graduating from high school and immediately found work in TV and theatre. She’s presently garnering rave reviews for her parts in two Soulpepper Theatre Company productions, Our Town and The Time of Your Life, and when those productions close this month MacIsaac will take the biggest step in her acting journey so far — packing her bags and moving to L.A.
“I’m going to give it a shot in the States,” she says. “[Superbad] is coming out in August, I’ve got a lot of friends there now and I’ve got my papers to work there so I think now is the best time.
“I was sort of hesitating going down when I initially got Superbad, I sort of had a picture of Hollywood in my mind and I didn’t think I was going to like it. I thought everyone was going to be superficial and full of themselves, and that wasn’t at all what I got when I arrived.
“And I’m used to working in Canada where we don’t have a whole lot of money or time to work with,” adds MacIsaac, “but going down there you could actually do a scene until you felt you got everything out of it rather than, ‘Well, we’re out of time, we’ve got to keep going.’”
—Ingrid Randoja