Caroline Dhavernas

Caroline Dhavernas
Dhavernas at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	May 15, 1978 (1978-05-15) Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1990–present

Caroline Dhavernas (/ˈkærəlɨn dəˈvɜrnə/; born May 15, 1978) is a Canadian actress. Dhavernas is best known in the United States as "Jaye" from the short-lived television series Wonderfalls on Fox. She starred as Dr. Lily Brenner in the ABC medical drama Off the Map.

Life and career

Dhavernas was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of the Québécois actors Sébastien Dhavernas and Michèle Deslauriers. Her first name is pronounced like "Carolyn" because of her French-Canadian heritage. Her last name is roughly pronounced "Daverna" for the English-speaking audience but originally pronounced "Davernaus" (aus like house). Her sister Gabrielle Dhavernas is also an actress and specialises in dubbing. The voice timbre of both actresses is very similar, so similar that Gabrielle can dub the voice of Caroline. She learned English at a very young age, as her parents sent her to an English-speaking elementary school called The Priory School.

She began her career at the age of 8, dubbing voices for television productions such as Babar. At the age of 12 she began her acting career in the film Comme un Voleur (1990).

Dhavernas portrayed swimmer Marilyn Bell in the made-for-television movie Heart: The Marilyn Bell Story (1999). She trained for 2 months with the Pointe-Claire Swim Club to convincingly portray Marilyn Bell who was the first to cross 32-mile Lake Ontario in 1954. Other notable films have included a leading role in Edge of Madness (2002), and supporting roles in Out Cold (2001) and Lost and Delirious (2001). She also had a notable role on Law & Order as a closeted, gay teenager who killed her girlfriend in the episode "Girl Most Likely" (12x17).

Her most high-profile work to date is as the central character in Wonderfalls. Dhavernas plays Jaye, an underachiever university graduate from a wealthy family, who lives in a trailer and works at the Wonderfalls Gift Emporium, a Niagara Falls gift shop. One of the quirks of the show is Jaye's ability to hear inanimate objects speaking to her, and encouraging her to help other people. Dhavernas has described the show as being like "Touched by an Angel on acid". The show received widespread critical praise, but Fox canceled the show after four airings. Millions of fans signed a petition to try to get the show to stay but only partly succeeded with 20th Century Fox only releasing the DVD with the 13 completed episodes. She did her own voice-overs for the French translation of Wonderfalls.

Since the cancellation of Wonderfalls, Dhavernas has continued to appear in Canadian-made features, including Niagara Motel and These Girls. She also appears in the 2006 film Hollywoodland about the death of actor George Reeves, as well as in the 2007 film Breach.

She also has the lead role in Surviving My Mother (which went under the working title of The Yellow Woman), a movie directed by Émile Gaudreault which premiered at the Festival des films du monde of Montreal on August 28, 2007. The wider theatrical release was November 2, 2007. In 2008 Dhavernas starred in Passchendaele, a film written and directed by Paul Gross about the Battle of Passchendaele. Passchendaele accounted for half of 2008's box office revenue from made-in-Canada anglophone films and as of 2009 is the most expensive film in Canadian history.

It's a beautiful film and I'm really, really happy to be part of it. It's about Battle of Passchendaele, which was a very important battle for Canadians and it's a big part of our history. It was just so amazing to be privileged to live a little part of that history.

Recent projects include The Cry of the Owl, a movie adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel of the same name, and the popular Quebec comedy De père en flic. She also appeared in the first and last episodes of HBO's miniseries The Pacific, produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and she guest starred on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, playing Maya in the episode "Love Sick" in May 2010.

In 2012, audiences will see her in Martin Villeneuve's Mars et Avril, a science fiction film based on the graphic novels of the same name.

Awards and nominations

• Nominated for a Genie at the Genie Awards for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role for Niagara Motel (2006)
• Nominated for a Genie at the Genie Awards for Best Achievement in Music - Original Song for La belle bête (2006) shared with Patrick Watson for the song Trace-Moi

Filmography

• Marilyn (unknown episodes, 1991–1993) .... Abeille
• Zap (unknown episodes, 1993–1996) .... Isabelle Daigneault
• Cap Tourmente (1993) .... Valérie Huot
• L'oreille de Joé (1996) ....
• Urgence (unknown episodes, 1996–1997) .... Josianne Villeneuve
• Lobby (unknown episodes, 1997) .... Roxanne
• Réseaux (unknown episodes, 1998) .... Christine
• Running Home (1999) .... Jessica
• Le polock (unknown episodes, 1999) .... Camille Langlois
• L'île de sable (1999) .... Manou
• Tag (unknown episodes, 2000) .... Stéphanie
• The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne (1 episode, "The Golem", 2000) .... Angélique Doré
• Lost and Delirious (2001) .... Kara
• Heart: The Marilyn Bell Story (2001) .... Marilyn Bell
• Out Cold (2001) .... Anna Majors
• Les moutons de Jacob (2002) .... Caroline
• Edge of Madness (2002) .... Annie Herron and performer of My Love's Like A Red, Red Rose
• Law & Order (1 episode, "Girl Most Likely", 2002) .... Alicia Milford
• The Baroness and the Pig (2002) .... Emily
• The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story (2003) .... Passion Hockmeister
• The Tulse Luper Suitcases: Antwerp (2003) .... Passion Hockmeister
• Nez rouge (2003) .... Nathalie Lachance
• Fox & Friends (1 episode, "6 March 2004", 2004) .... Herself
• On Air with Ryan Seacrest (1 episode, "12 March 2004", 2004) .... Herself
• Wonderfalls (13 episodes, 2004) .... Jaye Tyler
• Tout le monde en parle (1 episode, "14 November 2004", 2004) .... Herself
• These Girls (2005) .... Keira St-George
• Niagara Motel (2006) .... Loretta
• Comme tout le monde (2006) .... Claire
• Hollywoodland (2006) .... Kit Holliday
• La belle bête (2006) .... Isabelle-Marie
• Breach (2007) .... Juliana O'Neill
• Surviving My Mother (2007) .... Bianca
• Passchendaele (2008) .... Sarah Mann
• The Road to Passchendaele (TV, 2008) .... Herself
• The Cry of the Owl (2009) .... Nickie Grace
• De père en flic (2009) .... Geneviève
• One Last Dance (2009) .... Young Norma
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent (1 episode, "Love Sick", 2010) .... Maya Sills
• The Pacific (2 episodes, "Guadalcanal/Leckie" and "Home", 2010) .... Vera Keller
• The Switch (2010) .... Pauline
• Devil (2010) .... Elsa Nahai
• Wrecked (2010) .... Woman
• Off the Map (TV, 2011) .... Lily Brenner
• Mars et Avril (2012) .... Avril (post-production)

External links

• Caroline Dhavernas at the Internet Movie Database