Peterborough native Michelle McLeod has chalked up another award in her acting career.
Now based in Toronto, the actor will be in Los Angeles on February 22 when the cast of the Hulu and Disney+ series How to Die Alone will receive the Independent Spirit Award for ensemble cast in a new scripted series.
Produced by Onyx Collective, a Disney content brand that produces projects created by people of colour and from underrepresented communities, How to Die Alone stars Natasha Rothwell — best known as spa manager Belinda in the first season of HBO’s The White Lotus — as Mel, a down-on-her-luck Black woman working at JFK airport who decides to take control of her life and begins a journey of self-empowerment and personal transformation after a near-death experience.
McLeod stars in the series as Patty, Mel’s co-worker and nemesis.
This is the second Independent Spirit Award for an ensemble cast that has included McLeod. In 2022, Sarah Polley’s film Women Talking received the Robert Altman Award, which is presented to a film’s ensemble cast, director, and casting director.
In that film, McLeod plays Mejal, one of a group of eight women in an American Mennonite colony who discuss their future following their discovery of the men’s history of raping the colony’s women. The film is based on Canadian author Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name, which was inspired by real-life experiences of more than 130 women who were drugged, raped, and gaslighted by men in an ultraconservative Bolivian Mennonite colony between 2005 and 2009.
Women Talking received a total of 151 award nominations and 57 wins, including the Oscar for best adapted screenplay and the Screen Actors Guild Awards award for outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture.
McLeod began her acting career in Peterborough when she was eight years old, participating in her first St. James Players community play. She went on to take various roles in several St. James Players musicals and Peterborough Theatre Guild productions, where she won theatre awards from both groups.
“My daughter grew up in the Peterborough theatre community,” her father Greg McLeod told kawarthaNOW in 2017. “She still says director Shirley Rolufs gave her first big break (at 11 years old) when she cast her in the St. James Players production of The Music Man.”
McLeod continued to act in Peterborough until she was accepted into the theatre studies at the University of Guelph. After graduating, she went on to complete the film and television program at Humber College, and is also a graduate of Second City’s Conservatory program.
She appeared in commercials and on the web and also produced her own improv shows in Toronto’s comedy community before landing her breakout role in the 2017 feel-good movie Don’t Talk to Irene, starring alongside Bruce Gray, Geena Davis, Scott Thompson, and Anastasia Phillips.
The film went on to win both the Comedy Vanguard Award and Audience Award at the Austin Film Festival, the Audience Choice at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival, the Galet d’Or at the 5th Canadian film festival of Dieppe, France, and the best feature and best writing in a feature Canadian Comedy Awards.
As for How to Die Alone, it’s not all good news for the show’s creator Natasha Rothwell and the rest of the cast.
VIDEO: Michelle McLeod speaks about “How To Die Alone” creator Natasha Rothwell
Despite the series’ critical success (it has a 91 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has three pending nominations for NAACP Image Awards in addition to the Independent Spirit Award win), Onyx Collective announced on Tuesday (February 4) that the show has been cancelled after one season, ostensibly due to low viewership.
In a statement to Variety, Rothwell said she was “shocked, heartbroken and frankly, baffled” by the decision, but it hoping to continue the series on another streaming platform.
“This show took me eight years to bring to life, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in that time, it’s resilience,” Rothwell said. “I’m not giving up. My team and I are committed to finding ‘How to Die Alone’ a new home because stories like this matter.”
“Now more than ever, television that amplifies previously unheard voices, and that prioritizes hiring and casting decisions that accurately reflect the diversity of the world, is essential. Representation isn’t just about visibility — it’s about ensuring that our stories, our existence and our cultural contributions are not erased.”
