TORONTO — When Lisa Gilroy was asked to host this year’s Canadian Screen Awards, she pounced at the offer like a goalie on a rebound.
“I thought maybe they made a mistake so I said yes really fast before they could take it back,” the Edmonton-born comedian says on a call from her Los Angeles home.
It’s a fitting attitude for a performer who says she’s been open to just about every opportunity lately, from cameos in Netflix’s “Black Mirror” and a Blink-182 music video to helming Canada’s biggest film and television bash on Sunday.
“I'm out here kind of saying yes to absolutely anything.” she laughs.
Amid ongoing U.S.-Canada tensions fuelling protectionist talk around film and media production, Gilroy sees this weekend’s Screen Awards as a chance to champion homegrown talent and the offbeat Canadian voices that shaped her — and she hopes to nudge at the politics in a "positive, lighthearted" way.
“When push comes to shove, like (Prime Minister Mark) Carney said, we're not for sale and we're our own thing. It's an amazing moment to look at, ‘Who are we? What’s the kind of art we make? What’s our style of comedy?’” she said, adding she was raised on Canadian staples such as “Trailer Park Boys” and “The Red Green Show.”
Gilroy is fast becoming one of Canada’s buzziest comedy breakouts, known for her cartoonish energy and taste for the absurd. Since going viral for her pandemic-era sketch videos and becoming a regular on the comedy-podcast circuit, she’s landed roles in Seth Rogen’s HBO comedy “The Studio” and Hulu dramedy “Interior Chinatown.”
Next up, she’ll appear in Peacock’s post-apocalyptic series “Twisted Metal” and Netflix’s Jennifer Lopez–led rom-com “Office Romance.”
Gilroy says live comedy is her first love, and she credits her L.A. improv shows for opening doors to her screen career.
“If you're a director or a producer and you come and see me on stage acting like a maniac and pretending to be some sort of swamp troll that lives in a sewer and eats dogs, and you want to put me in something, then absolutely, God bless you,” she says.
“You know what you’ve signed up for.”
Sunday's Canadian Screen Awards bash concludes three days and five awards shows of honouring the best in Canadian film, television and digital media.
Gilroy says viewers can expect "the same energy you've seen me have on podcasts, which is like, manic, unstable."
For the first time since the pandemic, the Screen Awards show won’t air on any TV channels — it will instead stream live exclusively on CBC Gem.
Tammy Frick, the CEO of Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, says moving the show to streaming makes it more “accessible” and “flexible.”
“The way people are consuming content has changed a lot over the years, and we wanted to meet the audience at that point,” she says.
“In the linear broadcast, we were committed to 60 minutes, which was very difficult for us to present the show that we wanted. Moving to CBC Gem allows the show to breathe a little bit. Now we have 90 minutes.”
Leading all contenders is Citytv’s “Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent,” with 20 nominations in the television categories, while Matthew Rankin’s Winnipeg-shot dramedy “Universal Language” tops the film side with 13 nods.
“Law & Order Toronto” executive producer Amy Cameron questioned the choice to skip a traditional TV broadcast of the Screen Awards.
“I would love for it to be on TV. I find it a bit disappointing, but you can’t know why anybody’s made these decisions,” she said in March after the nominations were announced.
Cameron said the lack of a broadcast is a missed opportunity to celebrate Canadian talent more widely.
“I would love for a Canadian audience to recognize just how talented we are collectively as an industry here. But if they're very interested in it, they'll come and watch the stream.”
Gilroy, meanwhile, says she’s leaving the broadcast decisions to the powers that be and is just happy to be in the room.
“I wish I was a woman who wore a suit and had a briefcase and was the king of CBC, but I’m not. I just do what they tell me to do. And I don’t want to lose this job. So streaming or TV, whatever it’s going to be, I just want to celebrate Canadian talent,” she says.
“I want to be able to touch one Canadian Screen Award. I’m not even going to get to take one home, but maybe I’ll get to stand next to Tom Green for one second. Maybe I’ll get to make eye contact with Jason Priestley. I’m trying to just stay positive and think about those moments.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.
Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press
