FOR ALL HER years in the spotlight as a teen, North York’s Stacey Farber was still startled at seeing her own face staring back at her at the Yonge and Bloor subway station recently.
For about a week last month, posters for Farber’s new CBC show, 18 to Life, in which she stars as an 18- year-old who marries the boy next door, were plastered just about everywhere she looked.
Or stepped, for that matter.
“I got in the back of a cab, and they were lining the floor of the taxi with our ad,” recalls Farber in between sips of Perrier at a midtown café.
“So I got in and put my muddy boots on my face. It was so surreal.”
But probably less so than if you or I were to experience the same thing.
The 22-year-old Farber has been getting used to public prominence, after all, ever since she signed on as Eleanor “Ellie” Nash on Degrassi: The Next Generation upon finishing junior high at Claude Watson School for the Arts.
The show proved to be fertile ground — while living up to its name — for producing the next generation of stars.
First it was Shenae Grimes (who played “Darcy Edwards”) off to Hollywood and a starring role on the remake of 90210; then came Aubrey Graham (“Jimmy Brooks”), who refashioned himself “Drake” and took hip hop by storm; next was Nina Dobrev (“Mia Jones”), the latest young beauty to be out for blood, on the hit series The Vampire Diaries.
And now, with the success of 18 to Life, it’s Farber’s turn in the spotlight.
In January, the show premiered to none-too-shabby numbers, beating out CBC mainstay Little Mosque on the Prairie and increasing its ratings with its next broadcast.
But tell Farber she’s “made it” at your own peril. For someone who’s got two successful TV series under her belt at the tender age of 22, she’s viciously humble.
“I don’t think I’ve made it,” she says, bristling. What she will admit is typically understated: “It’s been a good year professionally,” she says.
Why, exactly? Reluctantly, she lists the items she has checked off her to-do list of late: “be nominated for a Gemini; work on something other than Degrassi; and be on a billboard,” she says, turning slightly pink.
In 18 to Life, Farber stars opposite Gemini Award–winner Michael Seater (Life with Derek) as her young husband-to-be. Best buds since age six, the twosome strike up a budding romance that hits fast-forward when an impromptu game of Truth or Dare leads to Tom (Seater) proposing to Jessie (Farber), who accepts.
Peter Keleghan plays Tom’s conservative neat-freak dad (he Dustbusts the lawn) to perfection, alongside Ellen David as Tom’s overbearing mom, while over the fence and across the overgrown yard are Jessie’s free-love civil unioners, played with hippie aplomb by Alain Goulem and Angela Asher.
Despite parental interference from the diametrically opposed parents, the marriage happens anyway. And with that, the series unfolds, following the two youngsters as they navigate the dangerous waters of early onset adulthood and the concomitant complexities of love, sex, commitment and money.
Farber pulls off the role of a young newlywed convincingly, and not just because her diminutive frame makes her seem hardly older than the 18- year-old she portrays. In person, Farber evinces the same innocent charm and genuineness as her onscreen character, Jessie.
But as good as Farber is as a young newlywed, she’s not the type to launch into something so serious as marriage at first impulse.
“I’d probably have commitment issues,” she says without hesitation. “I’d have a hard time imagining that I could spend the rest of my life with someone starting at the age of 18. That’s a little extreme.”
Chalk it up to the capriciousness of youth but also to the fact that Farber’s got too much on her plate these days to even think of settling down.
Before filming began on 18 to Life, Farber was deep in studies at the New School, a progressive liberal arts school in Manhattan where she majored in fiction and minored in journalism. Along the way, she interned at Teen Vogue, Nylon and Allure magazines and has plans to write a complete screenplay within the year. “Just to say I’ve done it, she says.
Today, diploma in hand and back in her hometown, she’s busy with promos for the show and has rented a North York apartment that’s a couple of stops away from her childhood home at York Mills and Bayview.
Farber’s memories of Rollerblading, building snow forts and walking her dog paint her upbringing as safely suburban, but it’s her “favourite” memory that makes it seem downright idyllic:
“I remember going to Bella Carmela [at York Mills and Leslie] one day when the power went out. They were giving away free ice cream because everything was melting. I remember that,” she says with a smile.
In middle school, Farber mixed with a crop of talented young performers at the artsy enclave of Claude Watson. One of those kids was Jake Epstein, a future Degrassi star and the current lead in the hit musical Spring Awakening. Before long, Farber had hired an agent of her own and signed on, along with Epstein, to Degrassi, which meant she spent a large part of her time away from school. But there was no avoiding the classroom. During breaks on Degrassi, she, Epstein, Graham and the other castmates kept up with their studies with the help of a tutor.
“We were all in one room, not really getting any schoolwork done. We’d help each other with different subjects,” she says. These days, with their rising careers, the group of them are more likely to see each other on TV than in person, for the time being, at least. Still, the connection remains strong.
“We went through something that it’s hard to talk to other people about. We grew up on TV together. Looking back, we have fond memories,” she says.
But working on 18 to Life has meant a slew of new experiences for Farber, chief among them getting to know her on-set hubby off the set. Recently, after Seater won a Gemini for Best Performance in a Youth Series (edging out Farber for her work in the Degrassi movie), Farber, Seater and friends took to the town to celebrate.
“Michael had his Gemini and everyone wanted to touch it,” says Farber.They all ended up at a drag bar in the Church-Wellesley district, where they were pulled up onstage to play “Are You Smarter Than a Drag Queen?” — which Seater apparently was, making him 2 and 0 on the night.
Friends off-screen and newlyweds on, the twosome share a chemistry that has so far made 18 to Life a relative success. But in typical fashion, Farber deflects the credit in the direction of her co-star.
“He knows way more than I do about how everything works in television. I trusted him and felt safe having him guiding us through the whole thing.”
If Farber stays on her current trajectory, she may soon decide she has in fact “made it.” But that may depend on where we — or rather she — will see her face next.