Katharine Isabelle

Canadian TV is insular. Was it nepotism that Katharine Isabelle played the role of Lisa Baiocchi on the X-Files episode “Schizogeny,” whose production designer was her father, Graeme Murray? Eh. Maybe. The X-Files was one of those shows that went through a lot of actors, and “hey, my kid acts” could well get your kid a part. On the other hand, a quick glance through several of her early roles suggests that her father wasn’t involved in those parts. She got four DaVinci’s Inquest episodes on her own merits.

For Ginger Snaps, however, she auditioned at her agency in Vancouver, coincidentally alongside her eventual costar, Emily Perkins. When screenwriter Karen Walton saw them, she said the girls were exactly how she’d pictured them. And indeed Isabelle is extremely good in the role. It is, like so many horror films, actually about menstruation, and as Ginger Fitzgerald, she is forced to deal with her body changing in ways she doesn’t expect and doesn’t like. She is also alienated from her sister.

Isabelle is just good at horror. I haven’t seen most of the horror movies she’s done, but I have seen Ginger Snaps and I have seen her X-Files. There is also the fact that she did a lot of horror or children’s-horror before then. Well—maybe not a lot. She was in a bonkers-sounding movie directed by Stuart Margolin about playing matchmaker for moose that I now have to see. But a lot given she was barely sixteen when her X-Files episode aired. So what if she also filled her early career with a MacGyver and a special based on the “Yes, Virginia” letter?

Ginger Snaps didn’t make her a star. Cult, maybe, but certainly not mainstream. I don’t know how big a star she was in horror circles, not being in them, Frankly looking through her movies makes me feel as though she’s trying to be part of the most bonkers casts possible, which more power to her. She would in fact be billed just above Robin Williams in the Nolan Insomnia, which I haven’t seen in some time and which I can only assume is billed in order of appearance. It’s relatively normal by casting standards for her, though.

Things she’s been in lately tend to go back and forth between “I’ve meant to get around to that” and “I’ve never heard of that,” with a quick stop for Tron: Ares. She’s doing enough work in TV that I’m frankly disappointed she’s never done a Murdoch. One can only assume she never did Red Green because of the paucity of roles for young women on Red Green. She has done two more movies as Ginger Fitzgerald, but she’s also continued to take a wide variety of roles. Good for her.