Studio 58 grad finds success in the film industry

Reported by Perrin Grauer

Little more than a year out of Studio 58, Lillian Doucet-Roche is finding success as an actress after a journey that began at an early age.

“From the time she was a baby she was acting. It’s all she ever wanted to do,” said her father, Derek Roche.

“She would sometimes bring [me] to tears just for fun,” he said. “She was so good at acting, she would suck me in and then I’d realize she was just pretending.”

Now 23, Doucet-Roche also points to her early days as having been the catalyst for her pursuit of the dramatic arts.

“I was at an age when my older sister was my hero and so I started doing theatre because she was doing theatre,” she said.

After graduation

Since leaving Studio 58, Doucet-Roche has landed a supporting lead role in the feature film Live Like Line alongside William Hurt and Helen Hunt, as well as a lead in Nickelodeon’s Inside Voice, both slated for release this spring.

Jane Heyman, veteran dramaturge and co-founder of Vancouver’s Women in VIEW Festival, directed Doucet-Roche in Studio 58’s production of The Train Carr and Numbers, and is not surprised that she has already begun to find success.

“Lillian was a delight, incredibly hardworking, always prepared, a great sense of humour,” Heyman said. “She has really strong, deep, easily accessible emotional sources.”

But Doucet-Roche hasn’t let her early success cloud her focus and credits lessons learned from family and from her mentors at Studio 58 for keeping her honest.

“It is really important to stay positive and to laugh at yourself and to look at the negative outcomes as opportunities or stepping stones for learning,” she said.

Though her plans for the future are far from certain, Doucet-Roche knows one thing for sure: she is determined to continue performing.

“I have to fight for this thing,” she said. “It’s where my heart lies, it’s what I’m good at, it’s what I want to do. There’s no plan B.”