“CHRISTINE HORNE, well, she’s my discovery. I discovered a few people in my time, but I think she’ll probably be my finest hour”.
Director “The Stone Angel”
Kari Skogland
“We were working on the different ages, and still weren’t sure how it was all going to work, and my casting agent said ‘you must look at this girl – she comes out of theatre, hasn’t done anything in film – but I think she’s kind of special.’ So I said let me take a look.
“She came in for a read – I didn’t know which one she was at this point – and I picked her out of probably 50 girls, and said ‘who’s this girl?’ And it’s like ‘remember the girl I told you about?? That’s her.’ So I said ‘really, I think I better meet her.’ So she flew in to meet me, and well, little did I know it was the only the second time she’d ever been on an airplane. I mean, this girl, we literally plucked her out of the theatre, she had never done anything. I met her and was very taken.
“She had some physical similarity to Ellen Burstyn, which was kind of uncanny, and that I liked. But I loved her demeanor, the confidence, the fact that she had a very fresh presence. So I kind of took a big deep breath and thought about it for a little while, and we did a hair and make-up test, to introduce her and Ellen, and kind of see what that was going to be. And then I said, you know, we have to go down this road. It’s too exciting not to.
“So here we are, and I couldn’t have made a better choice. She sat on set for a couple of weeks, just studying Ellen, kind of channeling her, and then took the young Hagar and made it her own. She’s incredibly likeable, and willing to do anything to be the role.”
For Christine Horne, the entire experience was as exciting as it was surreal, bringing with it many ‘firsts’ in the life of this young Canadian actor – first time cast for a feature film (in a starring role, no less), first time setting foot on a film set (in a starring role, no less), first time meeting a screen legend like Ellen Burstyn (and playing her younger version), even the first on-screen kiss (followed by several sex scenes) – all in the span of just a few short weeks.
With “The Stone Angel” being her first foray onto the “big screen,” Christine Horne was born and raised in Aurora, Ontario, and graduated from the Acting Program at Toronto’s York University in 2004.
With a solid background of stage acting to her credit, recent stage productions include Nina in The Seagull, Viola in Twelfth Night, Antony in “Julius Caesar”, Eva Braun in “Summit Conference”, as well as “Absolution”, “The Vic”, “Interior”, “Where’s My Money?”, and “Macbeth”.
Christine is the artistic co-director of The Thistle Project, a Toronto-based theatre company dedicated to adapting non-theatrical sources to the stage. Thistle’s inaugural production, “Gorey Story, based on Edward Gorey’s “The Gashlycrumb Tinies”, played” to sold-out houses and was hailed “one of the best of 2006” (NOW magazine).
Active in her community, Christine is a founding member of Wordsmyth Theatre. She currently resides in Toronto.