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Shenae Grimes

From the halls of Degrassi to the manicured lawns of 90210, how this Forest Hill knockout landed the lead role on TV’s hottest remake (by Ben Kaplan)

BEFORE THERE WERE bidding wars between Etalk and ET Canada for her photographs; before she was represented by Amanda Rosenthal, one of Canada’s most prestigious and feared agents; before she was named the leading star of one of Hollywood’s most anticipated new shows, a Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff premiering this fall, Shenae Grimes, 18, was the girl next door who everyone knew would become a star.

The remake of the show that turned Shannen Doherty, Tori Spelling, Luke Perry and Jason Priestley not only into stars but icons to anyone of a certain age has the entertainment press buzzing and Grimes’s involvement in the project has caught the eye of everyone from the Hollywood Reporter to laineygossip.com.

The show, which beings filming this summer and will air on the CW network in the U.S., chronicles the life of Annie Mills (Grimes), after her family trades in the dusty environs of Kansas for the glitz and glamour of the continent’s most coveted area code.

Stepping out of a taxicab, clutching a tall cup from Starbucks and a Marlboro Light, Grimes already looks ready to grace the pages of US Weekly. And she just might, as the gig will require Grimes to swap her own choice postal code in Forest Hill for an address in Southern California. But not until she finishes school.

“I’m just not really that into Canadian schools,” says the former Vaughan Road Academy student who was being schooled at her home in Forest Hill for her final few credits before making that big push to L.A.

Not that she is too big for her neighbourhood. Quite the contrary, she is effusive in praise.

“It’s a great place to live, oh my God,” she says, as she makes her way through 69 Vintage, a vintage clothing store worthy of Rodeo Drive, in an Athenian headband, black tank top, red cardigan and gray and black camouflage pants. “I still feel connected to my neighbourhood, of course! My Gemini dress was made by the girl who owns Jack Flash, and she’s from Forest Hill!”

Grimes will soon be in a position to promote her neighbourhood all over the world. As the lead actress on the prime-time teenage soap opera.

If Grimes’s new castmates are any indication, the show could have the makings of the next great soap.

Grimes will share scenes with Jessica Walter, best known for her role as the gin-soaked Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development. Yellowknife, N.W.T.’s, Dustin Milligan is on board, as is Lori Loughlin of Full House fame. And Tristan Wilds, who wowed audiences as the troubled Michael Lee on HBO’s The Wire, has also been cast.

Caitlin Cronenberg, a lifelong friend of Grimes’s, who also grew up in the area, recently found herself at the centre of a media hurricane when it was announced she’d be Grimes’s exclusive photographer before she headed off to L.A.

“Before anyone had even seen the photos, we had three publications interested in the shoot,” says Cronenberg, who had seen on Etalk that Grimes was moving to Los Angeles but hadn’t yet heard the Beverly Hills 90210 supernews. “I kept seeing her during Fashion Week and thought it would be fun to work together.”

The pictures, which marked a departure for Grimes. She is usually photographed modestly in the visage of Darcy, the uptight, moral Christian cheerleader she’s played for four seasons on Degrassi: The Next Generation. The shoot showed a young actress at a turning point: not quite Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair, but more like a pre-meltdown Britney Spears on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar.

“I think she had a lot of fun on the shoot because it gave her the opportunity to play sexy, fashion forward and mature,” Cronenberg says. “She’s amazing to photograph, always doing something different, always brave, and we had the greatest day — even though it was very, very long.”

A certain fearlessness is essential of any budding young actor. When we met for the first time in January, Grimes was speaking of her disappointment with the Hollywood writers’ strike. She was already supposed to be out to L.A., but when production ceased on TV and movies, the ambitious brunette sought out an internship at Fashion Television.

“I’ve always had a strong sense of personal style,” she says, modelling a short silver minidress and fur-lined cardigan sweater. “I’m nervous about going on the show and working with Jeanne Beker. She’s such an icon, but I know it’s just something I really want to do.”

Grimes has pretty much been doing whatever she wants since she first made her way onto Canadian television. A child actor, at 15 years old, Grimes played a teenaged Shania Twain on a miniseries on an A&E biography, and she says acting was something she always wanted to pursue, even if she was at first tentative. She had a small part on Naturally, Sadie, on Discovery Channel, but wouldn’t break out until she made things happen for herself.

While a student at the Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts on Bathurst Street, just south of Bloor, she noticed Jake Goldsbie, who plays Toby on Degrassi: The Next Generation. She waited for her opportunity to make a move.

“I was too shy to approach him, but I asked my teacher if he could tell him that I was a fan of the show,” says Grimes, who made the most of the introduction. First she was auditioned. Then she was given a small role. And then she was cast as the lead.

“My experiences on the show have been amazing,” she says. “My coworkers are really my best friends.”

Almost as if on cue, her Degrassi castmates Lauren Collins and Adamo Ruggiero, who recently moved in together on the top floor of a house in the Annex (though they insist they’re just friends, and we believe them — Adamo recently came out on the cover of Fab magazine), join Grimes on the 69 Vintage shopping spree.

On Degrassi: The Next Generation, Grimes plays Darcy Edwards, a cheerleader with religious parents and a needy boyfriend, who experiences such extreme teenage heartbreaks as being drugged at a ski chalet, bullied in high school and rivalled for the hearts and minds of her cheerleading squad. A far cry from Gossip Girl and The Hills, Degrassi has always earned street cred south of the border for its unflinching adaptation of the day’s headlines.

“Me and Darcy are so, so different,” says Grimes. “Everything about us is different — I stand up straighter and have a different voice; we dress completely differently and have totally different outlooks. But that’s acting. I think it’s fun to transform."

According to Shinan Govani, the National Post’s man about town and official chronicler of young Canadian talent’s heat index, Grimes’s ascent to Hollywood doesn’t really come as a surprise.

“She’s a hypnotist with the smallscreen camera. That is to say, the camera doesn’t just love her. It wants to take her on walks, buy her cotton candy and wants to settle down with her!” says Govani in his inimitable fashion.

At 69 Vintage, before she signs her certainly lucrative contract to star on through-the-roof buzzy American TV, Grimes weighs the pros and cons of purchasing yet another shiny silver sleeveless dress. And then she decides to put her knee-high-booted foot down.

“I guess I really don’t need another new outfit,” she says. “I should probably wait and see what the future holds.”

And much to her prescient knowledge, as soon as the writers’ strike ended, indeed, her future would change. She’s now leaving Forest Hill for Hollywood. Perhaps fittingly, we had to get her final comments through a publicist.

“This is all very surreal and I keep pinching myself,” a statement released by Grimes reads. “I am so lucky to have such supportive people around me at such an exciting time in my life!”

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