TORONTO — Joely Collins still can’t believe she simultaneously renovated her home, had a baby girl, started a production company and made the movie Becoming Redwood.
The Vancouver actress, who starred on the TV series Cold Squad, knows a thing or two about overachieving.
“My dad’s a really, really hard worker,” she says. “I’m able to dream big because I’ve seen what’s possible.”
Collins’ dad is musician Phil Collins, who adopted her while he was married to her mother Andrea Bertorelli (they divorced in 1980).
She appeared on Friday’s edition of The Morning Show ahead of a special screening of Becoming Redwood in Toronto.
The Canadian film, shot in Langley, B.C., is about young Redwood Forrest Hanson (Ryan Grantham), who dreams that if he wins the 1975 Masters he can reunite his parents (Chad Willett and Jennifer Copping).
“We go between that world of reality and that world of magic,” says Collins. “It’s a really beautiful story.”
Collins served as producer of the film — written and directed by Jesse James Miller — and also has a small role as a social worker.
“It had a lot of heart, it had a lot of quirky characters, and the theme of divorce which is very much prevalent in today’s society,” she said of the project.
Becoming Redwood won the Grand Jury Award at last year’s Edmonton International Film Festival and Most Popular Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Film Festival, but some reviewers have been less than kind.
“There’s a fine line between quirky and overbearing, and Becoming Redwood keeps stumbling over to the wrong side,” opined Adam Nayman in The Globe and Mail.
Robert Bell of Exclaim! said the pacing of Becoming Redwood is “exceedingly lethargic.”
One fan of the film, though, is Collins’ famous father.
“He loves it, absolutely loves it,” she says. “He’s so proud.”
Becoming Redwood is running in Toronto and Vancouver ahead of a wider release.
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