THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 24, 1995 TAG: 9505240073
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
WHAT'S SO HARD about spilling milk? You tip over a glass or you knock over a carton and it's done.
``Ooops!''
Nothing to it.
There is nothing to it unless you're asked to spill the milk with a movie camera grinding away and a director present who wants you to slosh the milk around just so.
``I was not born to spill milk perfectly,'' said Joanna Canton, a just-turned-19-year-old actress from Virginia Beach who spills the milk on cue on CBS tonight at 9 in a made-for-TV movie, ``The Face on the Milk Carton.''
Canton said it required ``about a hundred'' takes to get the spill just right. Director Waris Hussein was fussy about the spill because it comes early in the movie and starts the plot in motion.
He wanted to get it just right.
Canton plays a 15- or 16-year-old named Sarah-Charlotte who is best friends with Kellie Martin's character, Janie Jessmon. As the two eat lunch in the school cafeteria and discuss boys - ``He really isn't all that good-looking,'' Sarah-Charlotte says of the dude at the next table - Sarah-Charlotte spills the milk by knocking over the carton.
The milk almost lands in Janie's lap. What's that she sees on the carton?
It's the face of a 3-year-old girl who was abducted from a shoe store 13 years earlier. Janie slowly begins to recognize the missing girl.
It is her.
From that point, ``The Face on the Milk Carton'' takes off with the story of that 3-year-old, who came to be raised by kindly folk played by Edward Hermann and Jill Clayburgh.
Janie thinks that they are her parents. But they are not, and once Janie learns the truth, she sets out to find her roots.
For some of the way, Canton, as good pal Sarah-Charlotte, helps with moral support. At one point, Janie is tempted to call the 1-800 number on the milk carton.
``Can they trace a 1-800 call?'' she asks Sarah-Charlotte, who is munching on an apple.
Salem High grad Canton ate a lot on camera. And shopped with the Martin character. And talked girl talk.
The filming took place in what is fast becoming Hollywood East - Wilmington, N.C. Canton drove down there and back three times in one week while auditioning for and eventually landing the role.
Auditions. They're scary.
``Every one is an adventure,'' said Canton, a wholesome type with dark hair who plays 16 with ease. Any why not? The leap from 16 to just-turned-19 is a short one.
Auditions. They can be maddening. Like the time a director asked her to play it ``a little more blue.'' Canton learned that movie blue comes in several shades.
Canton is as smart and as mature as she is attractive, appearing tall and thin on film although she is only 5-foot-3.
If she auditions and doesn't land the role, this young actress does not take it personally.
``I am comfortable in my own skin,'' she said. How many other 19-year-olds can say that?
Sylvia Harmon of The Actor's Place in Virginia Beach, with whom Canton has studied for 3 1/2 years, says Canton has talent and tenacity. She's also studied at the Governor's Magnet School for the Arts and has trained in voice, acting and improvisation as well as dance.
She has built her acting stairway one step at a time.
At age 19 she has already been in a handful of films and TV shows, including ``America's Most Wanted'' and ``Big Brother Jake.'' There's a Hardee's TV commercial with Canton in it. Now comes the CBS film and the chance to be seen coast to coast in a movie based on Caroline B. Cooney's book.
Winning the role of Sarah-Charlotte gave Canton the opportunity to work with old pros Herrman and Clayburgh.
Clayburgh is a cool lady, Canton said, and watching Herrman work is like taking an acting lesson every time, she added.
Bet Hermann knows what it means to ``be a little more blue.'' Clayburgh too. Richard Masur and Sharon Lawrence also appear in the film.
CBS spokeswoman Carina Sayles said, ``Although this drama is not based on a true story, we know from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that children are found as a direct result of people recognizing a missing child's photograph.''
If you watch the film on CBS tonight, you may never again look at a milk carton in the same way. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
JIM WALKER/STAFF
Joanna Canton
by CNB