Apples-Don\u2019t-Fall-Far-From-The-Tree Department \u2013 presenting South Surrey\u2019s Lilly Moloney.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Very, very closely, in fact \u2013 the two appear on-screen together as a mother and daughter in a recent episode of the top-rated CBS action drama series Tracker.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
And Lilly\u2019s dad, actor\/director Robert Moloney (who guested on the same series in 2024 \u2013 and was nominated for a UBCP\/ACTRA award for his role) couldn\u2019t have been prouder to watch from the sidelines during filming of the scenes at a North Vancouver location.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been no pressure on her to be an actor, but she genuinely loves it,\u201d Mortensen added, during a recent interview with Peace Arch News.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a chance to play professional make-believe \u2013 which is what we all do, really,\u201d she said, noting that, at Lilly\u2019s age, imagination is still happily unfettered by life experience.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an actor with a high degree of professionalism and dedication to the craft, but he was lovely working with the kids,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Lilly did a great job on set \u2013 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\u2019m really proud of her!\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said \u2018I\u2019d like to do that again,\u2019\u201d Mortensen said. \u201cSo we got an agent for her, and got headshots and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
They still don\u2019t want to push her beyond her comfort zone \u2013 as they well know, working in film and TV can be a hard and competitive business in which disappointments are a given.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to support her, just as we want to help all our students,\u201d Mortensen said.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s concept of the character) that may have little or nothing to do with the ability of an individual actor, she agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur students have to learn to detach themselves from all the considerations that go into casting a certain role. You\u2019re never privy to the details of why this person was cast and that person wasn\u2019t. It\u2019s challenging, but it\u2019s never something you can take personally.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, you\u2019re learning the craft for the love of the craft, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt builds confidence and it builds empathy, and you love it when it turns into an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to get a continuing role in something like that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
In the series, Mortensen plays Maxine, a mother with a young son, who comes to the show\u2019s home community of Hope Valley in distressed circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a crisis in the nearby town of Benson Hill \u2013 a big fire \u2013 and the residents of the town have had to evacuate to Hope Valley,\u201d Mortensen said.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Maxine) has lost everything \u2013 and there\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mortensen said she found the cast and crew very easy to work with at the show\u2019s standing sets in Langley \u2013 including series regular Andrea Brooks (Faith Carter), who grew up on the Semiahmoo Peninsula.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a little like the first day of school and being the new kid, but I\u2019ve never been on a set so welcoming and so warm \u2013 everyone went out of their way to connect with me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great experience, and I love whenever I get to play in period costume \u2013 and the show has now worked its way up to the early 1920s. Although I didn\u2019t get anything glamourous, sadly \u2013 Maxine\u2019s clothes, due to her situation, were all pretty much hand-me-downs.\u201d<\/p>\n
As fun as that was, it couldn\u2019t top the fun of her family being together on set for Tracker, Mortensen added.<\/p>\n
And that has given Moloney and Mortensen \u2013 and, Lilly, the newest actor in the family \u2013 another goal to aim for, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow all we have to do is book a show where all three of us can act together!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apples-Don\u2019t-Fall-Far-From-The-Tree Department \u2013 presenting South Surrey\u2019s Lilly Moloney. At the grand old age of six, the cute and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682798,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-682797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}