Toronto actress Alex Paxton-Beesley, known for her roles in Murdoch Mysteries, Cooper and The Firm, is now starring in CBC’s upcoming Mennonite mob drama Pure, which premiered on January 9th. Not only does she love television but film and stage work, and here’s what the Toronto native said about her secret hobby.
CraveOnline: Tell us about Pure.
Alex Paxton-Beesley: Pure is about a man and his family, and he’s elected to be pastor of our community and discovers there is drug smuggling going on. He’s pure of heart and determined to rid the community of this evil, and gets into a lot of trouble along the way.
And what role do you play?
I play his wife, so I’m the matriarch of the family, and he tries to protect me from what’s going on but I’m pretty savvy and catch on that there’s something wrong. That was something about the show that appealed to me: how beautiful their marriage is. There’s a lot of love and respect there, which was really wonderful to explore with Ryan (he’s the greatest).
Working on any other projects?
I have something coming up that I’m really excited to talk about: a play I’m doing called Slip. We did it last year and we created it as a collective – we put it on ourselves and got great reception to it. It’s a very different role where I play a police detective who is struggling with a mental health issue.
You’ve worked on both TV and film projects- do you prefer one medium over the other?
It’s always evolving. Right now I’m really loving working in TV. We’re in a golden age of TV – the stories that are being told and the way that they’re being told, with shorter episode orders and special event series – creators and writers can really tell their stories instead of having to fill out a season of 22 episodes. In TV, you get to have a happy medium about the things I love about stage and film. In film you shoot out of order, so you don’t experience a story from start to finish. With TV, you can build and grow a larger story over the arc of a season.
Any desire to work behind the camera?
I don’t know. If I did, it’s always been on a more design standpoint. I really love art and the visual medium of film and TV, which is something that I love about Pure: the colour palette. There’s a lot of blues and greys and more muted tones, and even the quality of the light is really specific, and that fascinates me. It’s the type of thing you don’t notice overtly but it gives you a reaction. I could see myself doing props, art design, that kind of thing.
Anything that people would be surprised to know about you?
I’m pretty open about most of the things that I do. I’m kinda of a grandma and I really love to embroider and knit and make things out of felt. I love to draw and do watercolours (my mom is a pretty talented watercolour artist), but my art tends to veer more toward the profane. I like to illustrate encouraging slogans that contain the word f*ck.
