Kathleen Robertson on writing, acting and finding her passion

When Kathleen Robertson — with multiple Gemini Award nominations under her belt, and a career that included shows with Mark Ruffalo and Kelsey Grammer —  started telling people in the entertainment industry she was moving into screenwriting, she says their response was one of "terror."

"Everybody's initial instinct was, 'Ugh God, an actress that wants to be a writer? Good luck with that," says the actor who many recognize for her role as Clare Arnold on Beverly Hills 90210.

Even her husband — who she has described in interviews with Variety and the Globe and Mail as the person who first encouraged her to write professionally — wanted to know: "do you really want to become a writer?"

Robertson wasn't sure she should take the leap, at first. She kept her writing secret and shoved it into drawers. She had quietly side-eyed other actors with side projects like podcasts or fragrance lines. "I was a little judgemental of it, to some degree," she says. "I always was sort of the mindset, 'You do one thing, you do it really well, and that's what you focus on.'"

But once people put eyes on her scripts, things turned around. Robertson has since been hired for several projects, including adaptations of books like the Chris Cleave refugee story Little Bee. That film is being produced for Amazon Studios by Gil Netter and Julia Roberts, the latter of whom is also expected to star in it.

For others who aren't sure about the leap into writing, Robertson says the key is to shut out "all the noise."

"You've got to put your blinders on and you just have to work," she says. "The weird little thing that's interesting to you, if you execute it in the right way, it'll be interesting to everybody." 

— Produced by ​Katie Toth