Avan Jogia, Sara Waisglass have gone from child actors to TV and film inspirations

Canadian talents Avan Jogia and Sara Waisglass are being recognized as mentors and inspirations for emerging filmmakers as the inaugural recipients of the Rising Star Award at the 11th annual Future of Film Showcase. Both Jogia and Waisglass have entertained us on big and small screens for decades, going back to Jogia on Victorious and Waisglass on Degrassi: Next Class.

Jogia went on to write and direct the feature film Door Mouse and wrote a book of poetry titled "Mixed Feelings: Poems and Stories." Waisglass has captured the hearts of people around the world as Maxine Baker in the hit Netflix show Ginny & Georgia and starred alongside Michaela Watkins in the film Suze.

While Jogia has had extensive success in the U.S. since he was a teen, the Vancouver-born artist still loves working and creating in Canada, like with his film Door Mouse.

"I love the Canadian film landscape. I think this is a place to make really interesting films and there's a lot of really great filmmakers, young filmmakers, that are getting opportunities to to be recognized," Jogia told Yahoo Canada. "I do feel like there's a whole crop of upcoming filmmakers who are basically stepping into their own, and the next sort of generation of Canadian film and storytelling, and I'm excited to be a part of that group."

"We make cool sh*t and we have cool people I think that are intensely creative and collaborative, and I think that's sort of our spirit and our skill set. There's just so many different versions or undercurrents ... of Canadian life that we just haven't really had a chance to explore."

The pressure to move from Canada to the U.S.

For Toronto-based Waisglass, much of her work has remained in Canada, and with Canadians like BlackBerry filmmaker Matt Johnson saying that filmmaking in Canada is having a "renaissance," Waisglass has seen Canadian projects "picking up steam."

"A lot of my auditions are for Canadian indies, which I absolutely love, and I'm seeing a lot more Canadian filmmakers getting the recognition they deserve," Waisglass said in a separate interview with Yahoo Canada.

The actor also identified that while many of her friends from Degrassi have made the move to Los Angeles, California, that doesn't seem to be the path for her.

"I don't think that is written in the stars for me," Waisglass said.

"I love Canada too much. I love the people here. I love the community I've built and I love the content that comes out of Canada. I'd love to keep working on Canadian work forever, but in a perfect world I'd do both."

But Waisglass did highlight that there is a certain amount of pressure to make the move the U.S., particularly when working on a show with American actors, which, as Waisglass described, reveals that the U.S. has a "better" understanding of the film and TV landscape, and the actors that work within it.

"You see how different the treatment is, it's like America understands film and actors a lot better than I think Canada does," Waisglass said. "But [Canadian sets] I feel like are so loving and warm, and that is the kind of environment that I thrive in. So I stick with that."

"I think there are a lot of protective measures for actors, like overwork and labour hours, and stuff like that, that maybe Canada has not really picked up on yet. But I'm sure that will get rectified soon."

'You're kind of forced to grow up very fast'

Both Jogia and Waisglass started acting at a young age and as we've come to understand more about children entering the adult world of film and TV, there can be challenges.

"I think back on it and I remember a lot of hard times, because I would miss school and I would miss all of my friends, and then I would be around all these adults all day who expected me to work like an adult, but treated me like a kid," Waisglass explained. "So it can be very confusing, but luckily my mom is in the industry, she's a producer for commercials, and she was always with me. She knew sets. She knew how things ran, and she was kind of pivotal and so significant in my career. And I don't know if I could have done it without her."

"There was one time where I bawled my eyes out and then everyone on set was like freaking out because it was taking longer, because I was crying. There's a lot of responsibility, ... you're kind of forced to grow up very fast, but I would not trade it for anything. I feel like my career has made me who I am and I am just so lucky."

'We don't take the time to find the best idea'

But having that experience for so many years means that Jogia now strives to come onto a set where he's the director having the "humility" to understand that position is actually "in service" to others on the production.

"I just think a lot of people get confused when they're in a position of power that they have all the answers and they have to make all the decisions," Jogia said. "I think a really big, important part of that is you're in service of everyone else."

"Your job is to sort of blow the trumpet and rally, and get everyone excited about making a cool thing. You get a better result with excitement and contribution and community than you do with the pressures of saying that you have to have all the answers."

Jogia also highlighted that, from what he's seen in the evolution of the entertainment industry, it's "lost the risk factor" in productions.

"I think mediocrity has held sway a little bit and we don't take the time to find the best idea, not the first idea," he said. "I think that because of the mechanization of film and television, and how orderly and, frankly, sort of sausage making pipeline-y the process of film and television has become, there seems to be very little room for exploration and discovery."

'You have to fall in love with the process'

For anyone who looks at the success that Jogia and Waisglass have had, and wish to hopefully have a similar career path, Jogia highlighted that it's not about the result, but rather the hard work that happens in the process.

"I think loving or fantasizing about the result of something, there lies madness," Jogia said. "The best way I think that I've been able to get by, or the reason why I'm maybe still here, is that you have to fall in love with the process."

"The process is ugly and there's conflict, and there's exhaustion. ... You have to sort a fall in love with the icky bits, because that is primarily the primordial soup into which the results can be born out of. ... The process should make you uncomfortable, or I don't know if you're pushing yourself enough to say something interesting. ... Getting up close, right beside, shoulder-to-shoulder with the ugly parts, the rejection, the unseen or unknown thing, the uncovering, I think that's where all the real good stuff is. If you can love that then it doesn't matter what happens, you'll always be in love."

Waisglass shared that finding mentors has been a core part to navigating her career.

"There are a lot of challenges that get thrown at you and very last minute challenges that will freak you out and throw you," she said. "And I feel like having people to turn to who know this business like the back of their hand, and who have likely been through something that you're going through, ... is so crucial."

"I would also say, have a lot of gratitude. Even in the moments that you are hating your life, have gratitude because this is the best job. Getting to do what you love for a living is such a privilege and I feel like having gratitude every day makes it all worthwhile."

Sara Waisglass and Avan Jogia will discuss their careers at the Future of Film Showcase In Conversation Series on June 23 in Toronto