We were lucky to catch up with Ishan Davé recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ishan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I began acting in films and television at age 13 after booking a Series Regular role on an APTN/Global episodic called Renegade Press .Com. It was my first ever audition. I didn’t know what I was getting into. I thought it would be a short engagement but it ran for 5 years. I did high-school in a propane-heated trailer in the winter of Regina, Saskatchewan and we shot exteriors in -30 degrees Celsius. I remember my on-set tutor was an old school, 6 ft 3, west coast hippie who smelled like fresh cut grass and somehow he was never cold. He had a grey ponytail and a grey moustache and the warmest brown eyes you’ve seen in your life.

The show was about a group of kids who run an online newspaper during the early internet. I played a lil sex columnist who didn’t have the faintest idea about sex but loved bodies and desire.

Anyway from age 13 – 18 I was becoming a teenager in two lives and once, and in retrospect it was as though one life helped the other. The writers kind of saw my real life and then shaped the character. I went home and felt more myself by way of that embodiment. Most things I care about in some way or another root into Renegade Press. The prairie years.

Ishan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Ishan Davé and I’m an actor based in Toronto, Canada. I’m also a teacher at the Armstrong Acting Studio, and an associate artist with the performance collective It Could Still Happen.

In 2002 when I was 12 years old, my older cousin-sister & I went to the cinema and saw David Fincher’s film Panic Room. I was bewitched by Kristen Stewart’s performance and in less than a year I’d found an agent and became an actor. I never looked back. In retrospect I saw a lot of myself in the character of Sarah Altman. I owe my beginning to Kristen Stewart in this funny way, I believe that with my whole heart. Since 2003 I’ve acted in big budget and indie scale film & television productions across Canada, mainly.

I’m of East-Indian/Gujarati ancestry and in the early 2000’s brown characters who weren’t broad stereotypes were few and far between. As the beautiful actor Michael Greyeyes says, “”Native actors, we’re always agitating, we’re working from inside a system to expand it– to bring it towards our subjectivity.” I can’t speak for all BIPOC actors and creators but since the beginning I’ve personally felt that there is no other approach to this industry than what Michael describes. I’ve often resisted the temptation to pay the bills by not yielding to stereotypes, but at least I can sleep at night with a clear conscience. That doesn’t mean actors who play taxi drivers or terrorists are lesser artists. We’re all a part of the same system and resisting it together in various ways. Although BIPOC actors are more visible on screen now, we’re still often the foil to the white lead. A recent example is POOR THINGS. Although Jerrod Carmichael is great in it, where is his emotional arc? How does he change the story? If there isn’t a bechdel test for race, there should be.

I didn’t see a lot of Indian character representation that reflected my lived experience growing up– I was like, where is the story about the brown parents who are self-employed and throw parties and have a sense of personal style? Where are the emotional arcs that draw me closer to the subjectivity of my community?

Engaging these questions allows me to go into work with eyes open, which isn’t always easy or even possible. But it’s the attempt. I’ve felt ever more grateful for the opportunities that have arisen out of this mindset.

Sometimes I get stopped on the street by brown folks who recognize me from the CBC television comedy Kim’s Convenience, and they say, “Thanks for the representation,” – they literally use those words. That really makes me feel like I’m getting somewhere.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I think every young person at some point finds ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ by Rainer Maria Rilke. It was like a revelation to me because it really helps dispel the myth that there are answers– in art certainly, but in life? He introduces this idea of living inside questions with joy, that curiosity is a gift. Acting for me is all about unknown and this book depicts the courage needed for the unknown, so beautifully. I’m still trying to re-find for the courage every morning!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Go to things that happen in real life, in real time. Go to movies at the theatre, go to live performance, go to concerts. Go to where the people are.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1559250/

Image Credits

Kristina Ruddick @kristinaruddick
Zachary Harvey @elementul