{"id":1594400,"date":"2020-03-31T13:33:14","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T17:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/divine.ca\/?p=1594400"},"modified":"2020-04-09T14:29:55","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T18:29:55","slug":"womeninspiringwomen-vinessa-antoine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/divine.ca\/en\/womeninspiringwomen-vinessa-antoine\/","title":{"rendered":"#WomenInspiringWomen: Vinessa Antoine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vinessa Antoine is a Canadian-born actress, who plays Marcie Diggs on CBC\u2019s Diggstown.\u00a0 Her character, left her high paying job as a corporate lawyer to a Halifax Legal Aid clinic to help her community fight injustice.\u00a0 Antoine is no stranger to performing.\u00a0 She started studying ballet at the age of four with the Royal Academy of Dance in Toronto, Ontario. After graduating high school, she then went on to study dance at the acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Center.\u00a0 After leaving the dance world, she found success on both sides of the border on shows like Being Erica, General Hospital and NCIS.\u00a0 She made a return to the Canadian Screen on Diggstown and she became the first black woman to be the lead of a primetime drama.\u00a0 We spoke to her right before the season 2 finale, airing on April 1st<\/sup> on CBC and amidst the uncertainty of the COVID-19 virus.\u00a0 Vinessa Antoine is out latest pick for #WomenInspiringWomen.<\/p>\n

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You are a pioneer as the first black woman to be the lead of a Canadian prime time drama.\u00a0 What does being the first mean to you?\u00a0 What pressures come with that?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I feel a certain sense of responsibility, to a degree, to make sure that I\u2019m representing this character. At first, I wondered if I have to represent all black women in Canada?\u00a0 I quickly took that off of my plate.\u00a0 I\u2019m happy that I have this opportunity to play this role, but for me but I had to take away this huge pressure to represent something.\u00a0 I just wanted to make sure that I was doing the character justice and represent a part of Halifax that normally doesn\u2019t get seen.<\/p>\n

You have said in previous interviews, that you didn\u2019t realize the rich history that black people had in Nova Scotia, where Diggstown is set.\u00a0 How did that change the way that you play the character and how you see yourself as a Canadian?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Initially, my experience as a black Canadian had more of a Caribbean\/West Indian history, background, culture and a way of speaking.\u00a0 I had an accent that I developed as a child and got rid of when I moved to the States.\u00a0 I revisited Nova Scotia when I was cast in the role and there is a distinct difference in the black community of Nova Scotia that had been there for many years versus immigrant kids that I grew up with who had parents from the West Indies where there is a whole other lingo and whole other Toronto lingo.\u00a0 Nova Scotians\u00a0 almost have an American twang, which I found interesting.\u00a0 It is such a different black history than the one that I grew up with that I didn\u2019t even know about until I did research for this role.<\/p>\n

\"Diggstown:<\/p>\n