"This kid likes drama and grit:" 12-year-old actor Alix West Lefler embraces horror

Rising Stars is a monthly column by Radheyan Simonpillai profiling a new generation of Canadian screen stars making their mark in front of and behind the camera.

Alix West Lefler is used to watching adults acting poorly. That's just been part of the job lately.

The 12-year-old actor from Burnaby, British Columbia is starring in Christian Sparkes' The King Tide and the upcoming Blumhouse horror thriller Speak No Evil. In the former, an eerie maritime drama hitting theatres April 26, Lefler plays Isla, a child who mysteriously shows up on an isolated island. Isla's magical ability to heal ailments and bring good fortunes makes her a coveted presence, fought over by adults who don't always have her best interests in mind. Lefler stars opposite Frances Fisher, who played the overbearing mother in Titanic, which the young actor admits she didn't have the attention span to sit through.

Speak No Evil — which also stars James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy — is a remake of Christian Tafdrup's Danish Haneke-esque nailbiter, in which a couple and their child are invited as guests to another family's home. They sit in silent fear as their hosts go from impolite and domineering to monstrously violent.

Speaking to CBC Arts from her BC home, Lefler can't say much about Speak No Evil (how fitting). The movie is expected in theatres this fall and is largely being kept under wraps. But, given its source material, we can assume the star-studded thriller has a lot in common with The King Tide: scenes in which Lefler's character sits silently in horror as the adults around her tear the world apart. Those moments speak for us all at a time when we're feeling helpless while witnessing atrocities unfold across the world.

Lefler is largely sheltered from today's headlines. "I definitely hear my parents complaining about gas and food prices going up high," says the sweet-natured child, whose big smiles reveal a missing baby tooth. Lefler, who starred opposite Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne in The Good Nurse, is mostly enjoying her craft. "Getting into those emotional or gritty scenes, I really have to think about how I would feel if that was happening to me," says Lefler.

"This kid likes drama and grit," says her mother, Michelle, who is sitting nearby, spending most of the interview trying to wrangle the family's two adorably feisty dogs, keeping them from jumping into the frame. At one point they're loose, successfully wrestling attention away from a giggly Lefler as they tussle with each other in the background.

Lefler's on the call from a spare room. A large ring light, no doubt used for self-tapes, is sitting in one corner; a keyboard in the other. She spins the camera around to show me memorabilia from her earliest work on shows like Riverdale and Siren. She's been acting for a few years but performing for much longer.

"I was going around the world with my parents doing lumberjack shows," she tells me. I don't let that pass without an explanation: what in the world is a lumberjack show?

Lefler describes performing at competitions in "axe throwing, log rolling and chainsaw racing." The latter doesn't mean running with a chainsaw, as I first pictured, but competing to slice up logs as quickly as possible.

"My mom was the emcee," says Lefler. "My dad was one of the lumberjacks. I also did some daddy-daughter shows with my dad. … I started throwing foam axes when I was four. When I was seven, I got my own hatchet. And when I was 10, my dad made me a double-bitted axe."

Lefler soon got into acting after a fellow lumberjack performer put her on to auditioning. She landed a role in a play, then gigs on shows like The Good Doctor, Hallmark Christmas movies and of course The Good Nurse, which premiered at TIFF in 2022 before arriving on Netflix. The King Tide, which premiered at TIFF the subsequent year, will be Lefler's first feature film released theatrically. Spoiler alert: It's also the first gig that has her in a scene with blood splattered across her face, a preview of what Lefler will give us in the genre fare she intends to keep working on. "I love horror thrillers and gory stuff," says the self-proclaimed Fear Street fan.

Sparkes' fantastical parable, shot in the Maritimes, depicts a self-sustaining community thriving because of Isla. Her supernatural abilities make her a prisoner of sorts, entertaining locals who line-up to receive her blessing as a daily ritual verging on religious fanaticism.

The King Tide was shot after restrictions eased up during the pandemic, and, perhaps only coincidentally, feeds off that moment. The film depicts an isolated rural community fiercely protecting their social bubble from outside influences. There's a cloistered delirium to its "islanders" that echoes the vibe when we were all in lockdown.

"The pandemic was definitely really scary and hard because I couldn't really see any of my friends during the lockdown period," says Lefler. She doesn't really connect that experience to the emotions she brings playing Isla, who is raised in isolation and doesn't really know the world beyond the island. She talks about tapping into those feelings to play Isla — the stress and sadness of being the centre of attention — putting herself in her character's shoes without really internalizing the emotions.

I ask if the pressures on Isla reminds her of the stressful experience being a child actor, surrounded by adults, acting poorly or not. "I really don't mind getting bossed around," she responds playfully. "Except I don't really get bossed around. I'm kind of on my own schedule."