Maev Beaty, Stratford star, shares her culture obsessions, including ‘Women Talking,’ ‘Sort of,’ some horror

Maev Beaty is a Canadian acting star, known mostly for her acclaimed theatre work at Stratford, Soulpepper beyond. She’s currently starring in “Beau is Afraid,” the surreal new film from horror auteur Ari Aster, an experience she describes as a “wonderful, romantic, magical, fever dream.” Her most memorable on-set moment? “Probably meeting Joaquin Phoenix while hanging from a harness in a vision-obscuring mask dangling 30 feet in the air at a 3 a.m. night shoot in a forest outside Montreal,” says Beaty with a laugh.

Next up: playing Beatrice (“my Lear, my Hamlet”) in “Much Ado About Nothing,” which opens at the Stratford Festival on June 16. As fate would have it, Beaty says the 1993 film version of Shakespeare’s spikiest play “made me want to live my life as an actor.”

The film’s poster hung on the walls of both her teenage bedroom and her theatre school residence. “I waited three decades to play a 400-year-old character who rages that men in power have the unjust ability to cause the death of women by mandating what they do with their bodies. And she's funny as hell.”

Maev Beaty’s culture calendar

Movie you can’t stop thinking about: “‘Women Talking’ — which should be on every high school curricula.”

Playlist essentials: “A tie between Stromae’s ‘Multitude’ and Lido Pimienta’s ‘Miss Colombia.’ I speak neither French nor Spanish, but I have read and reread their lyrics in translation while listening to these musically lush albums.”

Last great book you read: “Catherine Hernandez’s ‘Scarborough’: detailed portraits told through many eyes, excruciating, enlightening, funny and transportive. As soon as my show opens, I’ll read her latest, ‘The Story of Us’ about a PSW and the person she cares for, but narrated by a newborn baby.”

Spring art shows you can’t wait to see: “I’m looking forward to Mercer Union in Toronto hosting Laurie Kang, who a friend recently turned me on to. And Stratford Art in the Park happens every year on the river side between the theatres and hosts dozens of artists. I try to go once a week before or after a performance. And I always want to see Ava Roth, Jennifer Walton, Sara Macculloch and Johanna Reynolds.”

Must-watch TV show: “I’ll probably rewatch ‘Sort Of’ while I wait for them to make another season! And I’ve been waiting for ‘Little Bird’, from Jennifer Podemski, Hannah Moscovitch and Jeremy Podeswa about the Sixties Scoop. It’s unmissable.”

Performers you feel are particularly exciting: “At the moment, I’m very in love with every performer in both ‘Much Ado’ and ‘The Wedding Band.’ When we’re running either of the shows and I’m watching others’ scenes from the side of the hall, I forget completely that I’m also in the show. If you looked over you’d see me weeping or cackling too loud, transported. It’s a joy to be reunited with past colleagues such as Akosua Amo-Adem or Ijeoma Emesowum and also getting to know Allison Edwards-Crewe or Antonette Ruderup close.”

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