I'm here with Aitalia Richie, who I have a surprise for.

You look nervous.

I'm a little. Have you ever gone shopping at Upper Canada Mall?

I have. Are you from Newmarket by any chance?

So am I.

Really?

Yes.

Oh my god. Yes.

Where?

From Aurora. I was like born in Newmarket. Oh my god. This is exciting because you know how small our town is. Like, so what's high school did you go to?

Aurora High School.

And to Sacred Heart. You went to Sacred Heart? Oh my god. Okay, so where are we going?

All right. Welcome to the set. We're shooting a scene with mom. And action.

It's freezing right. We're going to shoot and it's so cold. So cold. And I'm always cold though here. Everybody's like, you should be tougher than that. You're Canadian, but I know. It's not annoying. I'm always. I know. It's usually like you can see your breath on stage even at it. And this is the Carver kitchen, which you guys will see so much of. Um up here is where the really good embarrassing photos come in. You're going to topless shot of me.

Coming from a small town, sort of just take me through, I mean, being the lead in the show. I mean, it's a fantastic show. I saw the pilot. It's incredible. You're incredible. You're like a light on screen.

Oh my god. Thank you so much. Wow. It still feels too good to be true. Does it? I still don't really believe it. I still feel like I'm just that girl from Newmarket. I'm just waiting for somebody to be like, "Psych, this is all a joke."

So, you're one of the love and trust on the show. But is it One. One of them. Well, yes. I want to ask you about the triangle. There's going to be a triangle, right? People are going to have to pick teams. That Yeah, there are teams. How are you going to be have everybody on your team?

I I plan to win over the fans by really developing a good relationship with the writers. I love the love triangle that's happening. I know. Isn't it fun as an actress to have the triangle? The It's it's hard though because people constantly ask me like whose team I'm on. I'm like, I don't know. You have to be. Because when I read the scripts, I'm like, oh, team Leo. Duh. Then I see the episodes and I was like, oh damn, Dominic, you get me. Shooting the pilot was, uh, that was nerve-wracking. Mainly because of the accent and and making sure that I could still be natural and be myself and and do what the character needs to do and And not say things phonetically, like I said your last name.

Yeah, exactly. Like, how are you? Hey, April. Let's go to the gig.

Yeah, you wouldn't you wouldn't get her that way. No. I I don't know what my accent is anymore. Cuz I live with two people from Louisiana, and I live in LA, and I have some English relatives, and I'm Australian. So, you don't even know how you sound anymore.

But does that happen to you? Because when I go to like Florida, or I start talking like I have a Southern accent a little bit.

Oh, yeah, no, no, no. When I'm around, I say like, "No, ma'am," to the dogs at the house. Like, Robbie taught me to do to practice out and about, I'm sorry tomorrow instead of out and about, I'm sorry tomorrow. So, but when I go home I like that you can switch it so quickly though. My job. There was a mac and cheese bar in here and it was like five different types of gourmet like a four cheese one, a a garlic bacon one, and like a buffalo chicken mac and cheese. They were like mind blowing. They were so good.

What was the best?

I had all of them mixed together.

Oh, you did. Tell me about your your audition process for the show. Sort of.

I was like in this weird period of like testing for all these shows and like nothing was working out. By the time this one came around, I was like, "Oh fine. Yeah, I'll go." It's not like I'm going to get it anyway. And I went and they're like, "You got a call back." And I'm like, "Well, that's great." You were now coming through the Carver's front door and they've they made the outside look like the street in Boston, which actually it looks so much like it, where we shot in Beacon Hill. It really does. It's amazing. And it's just like it's like basically painted cardboard, which is so cool. I love it.

This makes me think of your date. Your first well, I'm thinking of a pilot.

Well, this is actually right where I get diagnosed with cancer. In Boston. We shot it in Boston. Oh, that's right. I literally auditioned on a Friday and then went in again on a Monday. Uh and got in my car from the audition and got a call saying they'd like you to be Beth. I remember when I went into the audition, I recognized every actress in the waiting room and I was like, "Great. I'm the token unknown." Also, like why does April have so many photos of herself in her room?

In her room. Hayley has the same thing. I'm like, "Brenna, you love yourself." That's true. A lot of sets have that where it's like the actors' pictures of themselves on the wall. So, because there are tears on the show, there's gonna be some tears. I wanted to ask you in your life, when was the last time you either laughed until you cried in a movie or cried until you laughed?

I did cry reading the last episode. Like at the table read for the finale. You're not really supposed to go like go there for a table read and I couldn't stop it. Like I was like, "I'm really sorry, but I can't not be like snot crying so bad right now." It was really intense. This just happens to be what happens when you're on a chasing life set. You have one of these. Yep. Nobody knows how to operate them. Really? But they're here.

So Italia, one of her sort of themes in the show is she's playing this reporter who sort of has to pay her dues before she becomes like a full-fledged. Do you have do you feel like in this business, do you feel like you've had to pay your dues?

Yeah. I mean, I feel like I feel like that's kind of the fun of it though. Like those days that are really long and kind of crazy are the the most fun that you ever have. This is an amazing set. They're pretty brilliant. Yeah.

Do you have a favorite location?

I do like the hospital ones because I get to lay down the entire scene. You don't have to hit your mark. You don't have to, you know. No. There's none of that. I feel like I got a lot luckier than some people have. On an O&B visa, you can't work as anything else. I couldn't be a waitress. I was literally like stealing honey packets from Starbucks to like, you know, have food. So, I've actually had scenes where I'm like, "Okay, going downstairs," and had to be like, "Oh." Really? So awkward, or like pretend to come up the stairs and I'm just like, "Oh." You know, it's really awkward.

That's cool. But you've been hashtagging out and tweeting out, "How do you chase life?" How do you chase life when you're not when you're not working?

Right now, my favorite thing to do when I'm not working, that makes me feel like I'm doing something is reading and responding to all of the amazing stories that my fans are sharing with me. And just them feeling like I'm doing a good enough job that warrants them opening up and telling me their experiences and feeling like they're being heard. This is the cutest crafty I've ever seen in my life.

Isn't it? I mean, for people out there, usually it's a table and there's a lot of crap on it. I mean, this is actually a little healthy for me.

I know. I'm like, "Ew, salad bar." So, when that happens, I go into a secret little fridge over there. There's so many things there. All right. Going to open.

Cheers to Newmarket, girl.

Cheers, Newmarket. Thank you for the tour.