An Interview with Lally Cadeau

ByLance Erickson Ghulam
The Avonlea Traditions Chronicle - Fall 1995 (Issue # 13) - Pages 14-15

What do you feel contributes most to the success of Road to Avonlea?

"First of all, our cast is pretty amazing. I say that impartially. We have a fairly unselfconcious group of actors who are mostly interested in a true representaion of their characters. They have tons of experience on stage and in television and have very little fear about how they present themselves. Once they get their teath into a character, they go for every single little detail of that person. They're all smart, well-read and interesting. Frankly, I think the cast has a great deal to do with the success of the show.

"The crew is made up of people who care deeply about their work. The days are long. Very often the crew works a 120 hour week. We work outside in the snow, sleet, hail, blizzards and anything else. When you put that much work and effort into a show, it can't help but be good."

How do you feel when you see yourself on screen?

"Oh, I cringe! I look pretty different on television. Most of the time I find myself pretty hard to watch. There have been a few episodes that I've enjoyed watching, but I usually watch with one eye closed so I can close both if I need to. Or I'll open my eyes for everyone else's performance, then close them when I come on. It's tough watching yourself made up in corsets and skirts and buns and all that. But I love watching the show regularly."

How do you manage the never-ending requirements of being both a mother and a homemaker with the demanding schedule of a TV series?

"Well, it's a challenge. Sometimes I really would just like to go to the Bahamas and start a small little coffee shop or something (laughs). I enjoy being busy, but sometimes I would like to be every so slightly less busy. I guess that's bad luck to say. My new challenge for this years is trying to find ways of relaxing more, like swimming, breathing, yogs, etc. I operate on a very high stress level and I'm trying to alter that."

What personal insight can you give us on the children on Road to Avonlea?

"Zachary Bennett is adorable! I'm so glad I'm his mom. He was such a chubby little puppy when we first started the show, and not he's this tall, gangly, handsome, charming, witty, lovely guy. He wants to go away to England and study acting, which is an interesting statement about a kid who's been acting since he was a child. I have tremendous respect for him.

"I think Gema Zamprogna does a lovely job. She works very hard on the show, gets up at 3:30 a.m., gets driven to the studio by her dad, works hard all day, studies dance at night when she gets home, gets all her homework done. . . she's really an extraordinary person. She's decent and hard-working and she's going to be a tremendous success in the academic field in whatever she studies. She wants to study drama at University but she's real good at at whole bunch of things. They both have grown up and are ral actors now. All the good things that can happen to child actors have been exhibited on the show. I think a lot of that has to do with their families, who are bright, supportive, involved and always there.

"If you come into a project with any preconceived ideas or difficulties with children or young people or men or any of those huge generalizations we carry around with us, you have to work through those situations because that's the only way you can work productively together. You have to try to make things work. So, for a lot of people it's been a real growning experience. I love it for that. It's very nice also to run into people and have them say how important the show is to them. I sometimes get wonderful letters that make me cry because they're so fervent and sincere. People relate so strongly to these characters. [Being on the series] has been a very positive experience."

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