KATHLEEN ROBERTSON KNOWS WHAT MATTERS NOW
From Reacher and Tracker to the upcoming Blessed Sacrament, Kathleen Robertson moves between inhabiting stories and creating them with a perspective few careers can offer. Now, the actress, writer, producer, and showrunner is choosing where to place her creative energy and what deserves it.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MOLLIE PIE
PRODUCER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR: ERIC TAM
HAIR & MAKEUP: RACQUELLE NEMBHARD
“MY DEFINITION OF SUCCESS IS BEING ABLE TO DO WHAT YOU LOVE AND MAKE A LIVING DOING IT.”
KATHLEEN ROBERTSON, ACTRESS
Kathleen Robertson has spent enough time on set to know the difference between being at the center of something and being responsible for it. She began acting young, long before audiences came to know her as Clare Arnold on Beverly Hills, 90210, a role that placed her inside one of television’s defining cultural phenomena. Yet the decades that followed would reveal a career far more expansive than the part that first made her widely recognizable. Robertson moved between film and television, comedy and drama, network and streaming, building a body of work that includes Murder in the First, Northern Rescue, The Expanse, and Reacher and Tracker.
As her career evolved, so did her relationship to storytelling. Years spent interpreting characters, studying scripts, and watching the complicated machinery of television come together eventually led Robertson toward writing, producing, and creating stories of her own. With Swimming with Sharks, she brought those instincts together as writer, producer, and showrunner while continuing to act, allowing her to understand storytelling from both sides of the camera and to take greater responsibility for the worlds she wanted to bring to life.
That evolution continues with Blessed Sacrament, the upcoming CBC medical drama Robertson created and will executive produce, showrun, and star in. At the same time, she continues to enter other creators’ worlds as an actor through Reacher and her recurring role on Tracker, moving between the freedom of interpreting a character and the considerably different responsibility of shaping an entire series. After so many years in the industry, she has earned the ability to do both without allowing either role to define the whole of who she is.
At this point in Robertson’s career, the accumulation of experience seems to have brought with it a clearer sense of what deserves her attention. She can still disappear into a character, but she can also decide which stories are worth building from the ground up, which ideas warrant the responsibility of leading a room, and which opportunities are meaningful enough to make space for. Her career is still moving forward, but the more interesting measure may no longer be momentum itself. It is the clarity with which she ultimately chooses where to place it.
“THAT’S ALWAYS A CHALLENGE FOR ME. BEING IN THE MOMENT AND FEELING IT ALL. BE HERE NOW.”
You’re moving between Reacher and Tracker, where you’re stepping into worlds created by other people, and Blessed Sacrament, where you’re building the world yourself. What shifts creatively when you move from interpreting someone else’s vision to being responsible for your own?
Everything. As an actor, it’s your job to fill in all the blanks and make choices about the characters’ backstories because a lot of times, you’re not really given much to work with in terms of the history. You’re also focusing on being a part of someone else’s story, so the work is more isolated and targeted. As a creator, the work is about building a world. Every detail is your decision. You don’t have the luxury of thinking about one single character. You need to service everyone and everything. I genuinely love both.
You’ve experienced this industry from so many different vantage points — actor, writer, producer, creator, and showrunner. What can you see now that you simply couldn’t see earlier in your career?
That it’s a very long road and nobody’s paying attention to you. My superpower is my work ethic, and I simply wake up every day and dig ditches. No fanfare. No discussion.
When did you first realize that you had something of your own to say?
I’ve always been a writer. From a very young age, I would write short stories and keep journals where I would detail everything about my day and observations about my life experiences. Writing was always therapeutic for me. It was the one place that I owned, and that I could control and escape. I didn’t start writing professionally until after my first child was born, and I was desperate to not have to be living out of a suitcase traveling around living the vagabond life of an actor. For many years, I would write scripts and throw them in a drawer and never let anyone read them.
Blessed Sacrament brings so many parts of your creative life together. You created it and will executive produce, showrun, and star in it. What about this story made you want to give so much of yourself?
Six Feet Under was and is my favorite television show of all time. I’ve always wanted to write a show about a complicated family. I’m fascinated by the idea that we are all raised by the same set of parents but end up very different from our siblings. I also have dreamt for many years of making a show in Hamilton, Ontario, the steel city where I was born and grew up. This show will take place there and be filmed there, and it’s something I’m so excited about.
After so many years in this industry, how has your definition of success changed?
I’m not sure it has changed. My definition of success is being able to do what you love and make a living doing it. I’ve always said that I would do what I do for a living, even if I wasn’t being paid. It’s what I am meant to be doing. Anyone who can live their life as an artist is a success.
“PRACTICING GRATITUDE. EVERY MORNING WHEN I WAKE UP, BEFORE I GET UP OUT OF BED, I MAKE MYSELF SAY FIVE THINGS I’M GRATEFUL FOR, AND I DO IT BEFORE BED AT NIGHT TOO.”
As your ability to choose has grown, what have you learned to protect in order to make room for the things you value?
My time. That is everything. I have kids, and they are only home living with me and my husband for a short time, so I’ve always worked hard to balance that. When I was younger, I would take on more projects than I sometimes had the bandwidth for, especially on the writing front when it was new and exciting. I didn’t want to say no when I would get the opportunity to work with somebody that I loved, that was inspiring for me. Now I really have to think twice before saying yes to anything. There are only so many hours in the day.
When the career becomes quiet and the cameras are off, what makes you feel most like yourself?
My kids. My family. My friends. Being near the water. Walking. Reading. Cooking. Doing puzzles.
A creative life can keep you perpetually focused on what comes next. What helps you stay present for the life happening alongside the work?
That’s always a challenge for me. Being in the moment and feeling it all. BE HERE NOW. Breath work. Meditation. Yoga. Sauna. Reading. Walking. Getting quiet. Being in nature.
What do you want your life to feel like, not simply look like?
Calm. Joyful. Vibrant. Loving.
After everything you’ve built and everything you’ve learned, what matters most to you now?
Practicing gratitude. Every morning when I wake up, before I get up out of bed, I make myself say five things I’m grateful for, and I do it before bed at night too. I’m trying to get my children to do this because we can all focus on the things that aren’t working in our life, but it’s so important to be grateful for what we do have — also having fun!! If we’re not having fun, what’s the point?? There are so many people who play the victim and complain about their lives, and it’s incredibly draining to be around that. I’m hypersensitive and aware of not wanting to be one of those people.
“IF WE’RE NOT HAVING FUN, WHAT’S THE POINT??”
