Apples-Don’t-Fall-Far-From-The-Tree Department – presenting South Surrey’s Lilly Moloney.
At the grand old age of six, the cute and charmingly self-possessed young lady is already following in the foosteps of her mom, busy film, TV, voice and theatre actor Julie Lynn Mortensen.
Very, very closely, in fact – the two appear on-screen together as a mother and daughter in a recent episode of the top-rated CBS action drama series Tracker.
In the third season of the Lower Mainland-lensed show, she and Lilly (in her TV debut) are featured in Episode 12, Do No Harm.
Mortensen plays a mother who must rush her two young daughters out of the family home after a violent incident involving her husband and an apparent intruder.
Although Mortensen shielded Lily from some of the more disturbing implications of the story, the scenes of leaving the house (in which the pair were joined by nine year-old Isla Brown, as the elder daughter) have a visceral reality and immediacy informed by the real-life mother-daughter connection.
And Lilly’s dad, actor/director Robert Moloney (who guested on the same series in 2024 – and was nominated for a UBCP/ACTRA award for his role) couldn’t have been prouder to watch from the sidelines during filming of the scenes at a North Vancouver location.
Lilly has been around actors and the business of acting all her life, of course (Moloney and Mortensen own, and are principal instructors at, White Rock Actors Studio), but the opportunity for her to appear on screen is an entirely new development, Mortensen said.
“There’s been no pressure on her to be an actor, but she genuinely loves it,” Mortensen added, during a recent interview with Peace Arch News.
“It’s a chance to play professional make-believe – which is what we all do, really,” she said, noting that, at Lilly’s age, imagination is still happily unfettered by life experience.
In the scene, Mortensen and the girls interacted with series star Justin Hartley, who plays Colter Shaw, a survivalist who travels in an old-school RV, helping police and private citizens solve crimes and locate missing persons.
“He’s an actor with a high degree of professionalism and dedication to the craft, but he was lovely working with the kids,” she said.
“And Lilly did a great job on set – she loved the whole filming environment. She loved having a pretend older sister. And when it came time to shoot the scenes and be in character, she had the focus. I’m really proud of her!”
While Mortensen and Moloney were still careful not to assume that Lilly wanted to pursue acting, a remark after the scenes wrapped dispelled any doubts they had.
“She said ‘I’d like to do that again,’” Mortensen said. “So we got an agent for her, and got headshots and everything.”
They still don’t want to push her beyond her comfort zone – as they well know, working in film and TV can be a hard and competitive business in which disappointments are a given.
“We want to support her, just as we want to help all our students,” Mortensen said.
At any age, not landing a role can feel like a personal rejection, even though it can be the result of many factors (such as scheduling, cast chemistry, a director’s concept of the character) that may have little or nothing to do with the ability of an individual actor, she agreed.
“Our students have to learn to detach themselves from all the considerations that go into casting a certain role. You’re never privy to the details of why this person was cast and that person wasn’t. It’s challenging, but it’s never something you can take personally.”
At the end of the day, you’re learning the craft for the love of the craft, she said.
“It builds confidence and it builds empathy, and you love it when it turns into an opportunity.”
Mortensen also recently had a chance to add to her own resume by landing a three-episode role in the popular long-running family drama series of pioneer Western Canadian life When Calls The Heart (Hallmark Channel, Global, CBCGem), now in its 13th season.
“It’s wonderful to get a continuing role in something like that,” she said.
In the series, Mortensen plays Maxine, a mother with a young son, who comes to the show’s home community of Hope Valley in distressed circumstances.
“There’s a crisis in the nearby town of Benson Hill – a big fire – and the residents of the town have had to evacuate to Hope Valley,” Mortensen said.
“(Maxine) has lost everything – and there’s a controversy about how the fire started. My character is very upset about that, because her son and her are having to start over again from nothing.”
Mortensen said she found the cast and crew very easy to work with at the show’s standing sets in Langley – including series regular Andrea Brooks (Faith Carter), who grew up on the Semiahmoo Peninsula.
“It was a little like the first day of school and being the new kid, but I’ve never been on a set so welcoming and so warm – everyone went out of their way to connect with me,” she said.
“It was a great experience, and I love whenever I get to play in period costume – and the show has now worked its way up to the early 1920s. Although I didn’t get anything glamourous, sadly – Maxine’s clothes, due to her situation, were all pretty much hand-me-downs.”
As fun as that was, it couldn’t top the fun of her family being together on set for Tracker, Mortensen added.
And that has given Moloney and Mortensen – and, Lilly, the newest actor in the family – another goal to aim for, she said.
“Now all we have to do is book a show where all three of us can act together!”