Pickle Barrel
CABLE TELEVISION IS teeming with
poseurs. When a blank-eyed VJ
wears a Clash T-shirt in close-up, it
speaks more to the wardrobe
consultant’s savvy than their own
punk rock predilections. But you
can’t accuse Kim Poirier of talking
the talk without walking the walk.
The Quebec-born and Thornhill-raised
host of such popular Space
channel programs as HypaSpace
and the Drive-In Classics Horror
Marathon has earned her sci-fi
stripes — and then some.
In 2003, she starred in the homegrown horror comedy Decoys where she memorably sprouted tentacles as a murderous extraterrestrial seductress. A year later, she appeared in the Hollywood blockbuster Dawn of the Dead where she escaped death by zombies only to be rudely bisected by a mishandled chainsaw.
“I’m a big horror fan,” says Poirier over coffee at the Starbucks directly across from the CHUM building on the edge of Queen St. West in Toronto. “I used to watch horror movies as a kid, covering my eyes,” says the 26-year-old, who has been acting professionally since childhood. Poirier admits that her formative movie-going experiences weren’t all freaky: She recalls having her first big crush on David Bowie in the campy fantasy classic Labyrinth and being surprised that the mysterious Goblin King was also the singer who her mother used to blare at top volume in her Camaro.
With its cheesy-cool special effects and vintage vibe, Labyrinth is exactly the kind of movie that might turn up on Space. The highly rated network’s mandate is to provide a forum for the bizarre and far-out, and Poirier’s poise serves her well on shows like Space Top Ten Countdown where she might take the audience through a list of moviedom’s most awesome killer cyborgs.
“The horror marathons are great,” she says when asked to pick her favourite program. “The scripts are out-there and comedic, and I get to have a lot of fun.”
“Kim not only talks about genre entertainment on HypaSpace, but she was in the genre,” says Jim Shusta, the director of production for Space, which selected Poirier from over 300 candidates. “She came to Space with an insider’s perspective. She’s been able to add her experience and enthusiasm to the show.”
The chic geekiness she displays on-air may be authentic, but Poirier says that being natural is actually pretty hard: There’s a big difference between playing a character and just being yourself.
“It was definitely a learning curve for me,” she says of her transition to presenting, which came after several years of television work — including a lead on the campy Canadian soap Paradise Falls — and those early genre movie credits.
“The voice work I’d done in my past was helpful in terms of projecting and modulating my voice, but the way you deliver a script as a host is different than as an actress.”
The biggest adjustment, though, was getting comfortable with grilling famous guests. Her first on air interview was with the cast of House of Wax, and Poirier admits that the dynamic took some getting used to.
“I’m used to being interviewed,” she continues, “and suddenly, I was the interviewer! I remember one interview I did where I had prepared pretty intelligent questions, and the subject wasn’t really responding to any of them.”
Poirier says she learned on her feet how to switch gears, choosing to make the segment funny instead.
“You have to instantly make a connection with the person you’re talking with. In that way, it’s kind of like making a film,” she explains.
“You meet somebody on-set and say, ‘Nice to meet you. We’re now going to be husband and wife and making out in five minutes. Let’s go!’”
That kind of awkwardness pales in comparison, however, to what Poirier went through on Dawn of the Dead. As mentioned earlier, her character in the film suffers a bloody, ignominious end — the onscreen realization of which required an incredibly in-depth makeup job.
“A live animated dummy of me was created,” says Poirier. “They did a full head cast. They put Vaseline on my eyelashes so that they wouldn’t get torn off. You’re covered everywhere — I had two little holes over my nose. My mouth was open because of the screaming position, so I had to hold it like that. I had long curly hair at the time, and to get the right curl, they took a couple of chunks out of my hair.”
The obvious question: Did Poirier think to snap a Polaroid with her painstakingly manufactured double.
“No,” she says. “But I definitely touched my boobs.”
Dawn of the Dead was not only a breakthrough in Poirier’s career, but also a homecoming of sorts: The film was shot partially in Thornhill, which meant that the actress could crash with her father rather than check into a hotel.
“The set in Thornhill Square was literally four minutes from the house,” she says, explaining that she’d lived in the neighborhood as a teenager and enjoys coming back to visit whenever she gets the chance.
Her most frequent excuse is the food. “It’s great because I’m a huge restaurant fan, and there’s so many great places to eat. There’s a place called Terra that I love. The food is impeccable. They give you a lemon sorbet to cleanse your palate between your appetizer and your entree. It’s fabulous.”
Poirier also enthuses about her latest new passion: yoga.
“I found the yoga school that I’m at three years ago,” she says. “It was in November, and I’d just finished doing Paradise Falls. I was always into esoteric, New Age philosophy, so I took a class and loved it.” That’s a bit of an understatement — Poirier has since become a certified yoga instructor and organized a workshop called The Yoga Theatre Lab, which combines the yogic technique with acting.
“It adds a good balance to my life, and it’s something I practise daily,” she says, adding that it was the deep-breathing, calming techniques she acquired through yoga that got her through that tortuous Dawn of the Dead makeup session.
The ability to keep cool under pressure will undoubtedly serve Poirier well as her career continues to take off. She says she’s looking forward to doing more film roles in addition to her Space gig, noting that there’s also crossover potential between acting and hosting. After being asked to reprise her Decoys role in an Alberta-shot sequel (the franchise has since become something of a cult hit; the series will be released on DVD in Canada next year), Poirier took the opportunity to bring her two professional worlds together.
“I did on-set hosting. Space sent a camera crew out to Edmonton, and I did interviews with the rest of the cast, which were excellent because there was already a good rapport between us,” she says. “It’s good cross-promotion — the movie gets promotion, because Space is on the set, and the show gets great interviews.”
The shoot was triply hectic because, at that point, Poirier was also acting as her own agent: “I was sure wearing a lot of hats on that one,” she says.
Not that Poirier minds being busy. She insists that she’s at her most relaxed when she’s got a lot going on and that work is never a source of anxiety, only excitement.
“I’m a very goal-oriented person,”
she says. “When I’m doing what I
love to, it’s exciting. I feel privileged
to be doing what I love.” 
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