It’s not easy being the rookie cast member on Rookie Blue. “I’m a brand new character so yeah, it was daunting,” says Priscilla Faia, who joined the cast of the four-year-old hit when it premièred on Global TV Thursday.
“Rookie Blue had already been a successful train for three years prior and I was moving across the country to join an established cast in Toronto, a city I had hadn’t really spent any time in.”
The Victoria-born actor plays Officer Chloe Price, who kicks off the season as a rookie with just eight months under her holster.
“Chloe has just gotten transferred to 15 Division for reasons that will remain unknown until later in the season. She’s definitely not a conventional human being or police officer. She gets things done her way,” Faia says. “She gets thrown into the mix in a rather unusual way. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s juicy.”
Faia says she’s having fun playing cops and robbers for a living, but her favourite part of the show is working with the Rookie Blue team — which includes stars Missy Peregrym, Gregory Smith and Peter Mooney.
“I’ve made some of my closest friends through the process,” says Faia. “Some of our crew members have been working together for over a decade, so it’s like one big extended family all working to create something great. Having said that, getting to play a police officer is and always has been something that I’ve wanted to do, so it’s all very exciting.”
It’s also exciting learning to live with a character for an entire season. “I’d never spent six months straight working as one character, so I found it difficult switching in and out of Chloe. She thinks, processes and reacts differently, so as much fun as it is, it was very strange spending more time in her frame of mind than in my own.”
Faia started acting “as a child,” but says she didn’t plan on acting for a living. “I got distracted and thought I’d be a gymnast or something random. I eventually started taking classes again and fell back in love with it. I moved to Vancouver when I was 21 and got introduced to The Actors Foundry. I spent an amazing year there and learned so much and fell more in love with the craft of acting. After that, I began and have since been working with Erica Caroll, who is an amazing actress, coach and friend.”
Faia’s not only a new addition to the Rookie team, she was a late one, too. “I got involved pretty last-minute. I had put an audition on tape and I hadn’t heard back for a few weeks, and then it all kinda happened very quickly. I auditioned over Skype again and then flew to Toronto for a test screen, which was one of the best audition experiences I’ve ever had. A few days later, I found out I booked the role and was back on a plane just over a week later.”
Faia’s favourite experience so far on Global’s senior hit was getting the chance to train with police. “I got the incredible opportunity to work with real police officers on a couple of different occasions before we started shooting. Rachael Ancheril [who plays officer Marlo Cruz] and I got to have a training day. We were trained on how to properly handle all of our equipment and how to take perps down — it’s fun saying that out loud. I also had the pleasure of getting to do a ride-along with the Toronto police. Getting to be on the front line, watching them do their job, was something that really helped me on so many levels.”
