Spotlight

Georgina Reilly’s Church Conversion

Georgina Reilly would love to live in the dank old church where her creepy horror film Pontypool was shot last year. And if there’s still some fake blood caked on floor she says “that would be amazing.”

That church — which closed its doors in 2006 and was sold to condo developers before it was chosen as Pontypool’s one and only location — is just steps from Reilly’s home in Toronto’s Junction neighbourhood. “I could see the church steeple from my apartment. It was like a three-second walk down the block,” says the 23-year-old.

The really funny thing is that, long before Reilly had even heard of director Bruce McDonald’s indie pic about a radio station shock jock (Stephen McHattie), his producer (Lisa Houle) and another staffer (Reilly) trapped inside their church-basement studio while a virus turns everyone outside into bloodthirsty automatons, she had taken a tour of that very church.

“I enjoy condos and cool stuff and I was walking by one day and thought ‘I want to see how they’re going to do that, how they design the place,’” she recalls. “I thought they were wicked. I’d want the top-floor condo because it keeps the original wood of the church roof.”

Unfortunately, Reilly’s Pontypool paycheque isn’t going to pay for a condo. Furnish it, maybe. “You could have a really, really, really good trip to IKEA,” Reilly says. “But a really good trip. I don’t want to make it sound terrible. Obviously independent movies don’t pay millions.”

And Reilly says the great thing about being a struggling actor (before Pontypool she’d had only a few TV roles and short films) is that the down payment for a fabulous condo could be just one audition away.

“Going to places like that and thinking big keeps me optimistic about my acting,” she says. “It is a tough industry, but it’s also a great industry and you’re always just one step away from the next big thing.”