Linda Kash - Actor, Director, Producer, Funny Girl!

Linda Kash life in Peterborough and around the world

By Jay Cooper Contributor,

Graphic Designer, & Musican

Linda Kash - photo by Kristine Hannah

I had the chance to catch up with Linda Kash, amazing Actor, Director, Producer, Voiceover, Mom and Teacher. You will remember her for playing the angel in the Philadelphia Cream Cheese ads. But she is so much more! Acting Credits: Seinfeld, Cinderella Man, Ellen, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Best in Show, Second City, Degrassi High, Ernest Movies, Waiting for Guffman, Fargo, Manic Mansion, Everybody loves Raymond, Wedding Wars, Hallmark movies plus so much more!

“It’s one of the most rewarding, but most difficult things to do.”

LK (Linda Kash): Good Morning how are you my friend? ATOTK (Jay Cooper, A Taste of the Kawarthas): Very well and thank you so much for coming to the Party for the magazine! LK: It was really good and I absolutely love Red Wine but I don’t know how to drink it. I just know I like to drink it. (laughs)

ATOTK: Well your half way there then. (laughs) So you are a Gemini, Actra Award winning Actress. LK: I am. Lucky me, eh? (laughs)

ATOTK: Movies, TV, commercials best known as the Philledepha Cream Cheese Angel, Radio Host and your acting school is here in Peterborough. LK: I think from a pretty early age I realized I wanted to keep it diverse. I know a handful of actors in Canada do one thing. They either just do theatre, they just do cartoons, or they just do film. But I just have to keep it moving.

I couldn’t just be a full time teacher. I give my heart and soul to my classes, but if I was full time I would drink more wine than I probably should. (laughs) I absolutely don’t know how teachers do it full time. It’s one of the most rewarding, but most difficult things to do. And I kind of feel the same thing about stage actors that give their life, working their asses off for 200 people in the audience 8 shows a week. They work really, really hard for not much money and dedicate their life to it. I love theatre and if I had to choose, I would say theatre is my first love. But there’s no flippin’ way I could have my life style if I just did theatre. (laughs) I like travel and I like restaurants and I need that.

ATOTK: You are a very diverse actor. LK: I am, but maybe that’s the best of hyperactivity. I’m not sure. I don’t know if I have a choice as I like to keep it moving. My flying time in film and on stage has given me the gift of confidence. So although I enter a project with innocence, ultimately, I know what I’m doing. But I don’t get cocky about it. And I think that’s why I take so much pleasure in what I do, because I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. And I’m enjoying the navigation. I’m not afraid to not know what I’m doing. I like to take every experience and go, okay, we’re holding hands and jumping into the pool together. Let’s just make this the best it can be.

ATOTK: Not a surprise, as you come from an extremely talented, creative family. Lets go a little into that. LK: For sure. My Mom was a world famous Contralto Opera Singer who never saw Grade 9 and helped to support her family at a very young age. She came from Montreal, and had a total fluke weird talent for singing that she worked on various projects. But she didn’t work like other opera singers from my observation. She hummed a bit in the dressing room, then went on stage and blew everyone away.

My Dad, on the other hand, was a violinist and a conductor and somewhat of a child prodigy. He didn’t play baseball or he didn’t ride a bike, because he didn’t want to fall. My Dad played violin from a very early age. My greatest memories of my Dad were of him practicing. He worked his craft for hours every single day and never, ever took it for granted. He never reached the stratosphere that my mother did, but loved his instrument like it was an appendage. It never left his side, that violin.

So I had this great vantage point of seeing a woman who received this gift, and did the best she could with the gift, but didn’t necessarily work her craft. And my father worked his craft because he lived and breathed music. And I am somewhere in the middle. (laughs) I didn’t reach what I thought I would as a kid, but I also tried to never miss a birthday party or miss anything my kids were doing because my mother missed a shit load of my childhood and I have 4 other siblings. She was a very, very important visitor but she wasn’t full time. I was brought up by nannies and by my Dad. My Dad was a frustrated musician. He didn’t get to where he ultimately wanted to be, but had an ego the size of the CN Tower, and was 20 years older than my Mom. He was a confirmed bachelor into his 40’s. But he never missed a concert, never missed our brothers football games or basketball games; he was always there.

So the idea of success has a very different definition for me. My priority is my kids and the rest is

great fun and gravy. I found myself in LA really close to getting huge jobs and at the very last minute kind of sabotaging them because some part of me really didn’t want it.

ATOTK: Your brother, Daniel, is also an actor. LK: My brother was in (the movie) Aliens and he went to England to study. At the same time I went to Pasedena to study in California and then I did Second City for 4 years. So my brother and I learned our craft in a very different way, but we kind of ended up in the same place. He does lots of film and TV, and also teaches. Every one of my siblings have teaching skills, as my Mom was a teacher as well.

ATOTK: Being a teacher you have to be very creative, I believe. LK: I think to be a great teacher is a very rare thing. I think you have to be a lot of things to make it work. As I say, I am a very, very committed teacher. It’s because I don’t do it all the time. And how many teachers do you really remember as having a huge influence on you? Ironically, it’s some of the toughest teachers that were the best for me, but it’s pretty rare. Like in theatre school, maybe two teachers I got a lot out of. When a teacher resonates, it affects your whole life and the rest of your life. And although I love it, I am not ever going to do it full time. (laughs)

ATOTK: My favourite TV show of all time is SCTV. Still is, just saying. LK: Isn’t that so incredible! So much fun to watch! And those first episodes were shot in Edmonton on a shoestring budget. They had no money at all but it was incredible.

ATOTK: The live shows are a complete pleasure. I also just loved the improv. LK: Yeah, I started to waitress there, spilling beer on people, then I became an understudy, and then with the touring company. SCTV was just winding down and I got to work with a lot of SCTV people in their specials and their films. The TV show was no longer an option, but many of those players would come down to the Firehall and work out with the cast. In those days,

it didn’t take two to three years to get on the touring company. I was in theatre school for a year in California, came back for the summer, and I took a workshop with a guy named Jeff Ellis. Within months I was in the touring company.

“I really loved being in Cinderella Man, because I loved working with Ron Howard.”

So I learned most of my skill in front of an audience. That was truly fantastic, because improv is a wonderful skill and a rehearsal tool. But you really don’t know what your doing until you have an audience. I’m also convinced I can teach almost anyone to do improv, and I wish it was in the mainstream of the school system because it transforms kids.

ATOTK: You have appeared in many movies and TV shows, but on the movie side, Best in Show hands down is my favourite. LK: Isn’t it a fun movie? I mean, some of the character work is so spectacular and such a great menagerie of people. The nice part about Christopher Guest is he gave you pretty free rein. You had to get your act together before you got on set, but then you improvised. It was whatever that groups dynamic was what the dialogue was gonna be. And don’t kid yourself, there was 55 hours of film he shot to edit. It’s an editing feat of genius.

ATOTK: What is your favourite movie project? LK: I really loved being in Cinderella Man, because I loved working with Ron Howard. I’ve done quite a few films that are all heart and wonderful to be a part of, but that was a really fun set to be on. It was very interesting to watch Russell Crowe work, and it was very interesting to watch how Ron Howard got a performance out of Renee Zellweger. It was many days at Maple Leaf Gardens with 1000 extras and blow up dolls. Before CGI there were blow up dolls in the audience. It was just a really cool experience.

ATOTK: Now, on the TV side, you’ve been on Ellen, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Everybody Loves Raymond, 3rd Rock from the Sun, etc. But to get a part on Seinfeld must have been a pretty big thing? LK: It was huge. It was my first real job in LA. I was body surfing in Malibu and it was before cell phones. I went to a phone booth and checked my messages. It

said you’ve got to be in the Valley in 45 minutes for a Seinfeld audition. So I literally changed in the car, had sand in my hair and elsewhere, and got to the audition on time. I wasn’t nervous, just happy I made it. Everybody else were freaking out that they were at a Seinfeld audition. But I got the part because I was so relaxed and happy because I had gotten there in time. (laughs) There is an audience of 400 people and Jerry goes out and does 40 minutes of stand up before the show. They just loved him and had been laughing for almost an hour. After every one of my lines, there were crickets. No one laughed at all. I looked at a technician and said OMG I’m in the worst Seinfeld ever and I’m bombing out there. He said what are you talking about. You are a classic. This is a really good episode. (laughs) But then you watch the show where there’s the laugh track and OMG it’s all about the post production. (laughs) Everyone was really, really nice to me.

Philadelphia Cream Cheese Commercial

ATOTK: Now, lets talk about your School. LK: We moved here Post 9/11 to a farm in Cavan. My late husband, Paul, and I both taught at Second City. He was a comedian as well. We decided to open a school because there were a lot of kids teaching kids, but very few professionals teaching kids. So we opened the school and started teaching camps in the summer. Paul did a lot more because he worked less in the business. He taught voice over, musical theatre; he was a real mentor even to adults who had never done improv. He worked during the week and I worked on the weekend. In 2012, he died in a car accident and I thought of closing it as it was our retirement dream to run a school in the area. But I decided there were a lot of kids that still needed it, and I still needed to teach so I just kept it going. A lot of students who were just babies at the beginning became assistants and help me teach and keep it going. It’s now in the 11th year and going on to honour what he created as well.

ATOTK: What would you like to say to all your fans and stalkers like me (laughs) LK: (laughs) Stop stalking and come improvise with me! (laughs) I think I have yet to do my best work, and I’ve got more to learn and further to go.

And I’m so excited to be in the magazine! It’s the perfect time for it. I love magazines and I’m so sad that they’re going away or getting thinner. I so appreciate the hard copy in my hands and especially locally produced, with local people and stories and getting to know the Kawarthas.

Photo by Kristine Hannah

For more interviews by Jay Cooper go to www.slitherproductions.com/Musicmag