by AMY BARRATT

In a classic case of Life Imitating High School Musical, Trent Pardy changed the course of his destiny in Grade 12 when he chose the lead in the school play over the starting line-up on the football team.

Okay, so maybe this Calgary native wasn’t actually destined to play pro football.

“I was too small,” admits the baby-faced actor, “but still, it was something telling the coach I’d chosen drama over sports and getting the reaction from all my jock friends.”

Sitting across from the 26-year-old National Theatre School graduate, it’s easy to picture the blond heartthrob he must have been at 17. Even though when we met he was sporting the scraggly beard he affected, along with a nascent combover, for the role of Teach in David Mamet’s American Buffalo, there was no disguising the dazzling smile.

Pardy seems to have forgiven the Mirror for comparing him—admiringly—to James Dean when he played the title role in Gravy Bath’s Coriolanus three-and-a-half years ago, even though it let him in for a fair bit of ribbing from his castmates. The young actor moved on from Gravy Bath to work with Montreal and New York-based SaBooge Theatre on several projects, most recently playing Billy in Every Day Above Ground, their adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. That production will have a two-week run off-Broadway this February at P.S. 122.

Pardy is also one of four founding members of SideMart, an independent company that made an impressive debut in December with American Buffalo. SideMart has every intention of sticking around and so, if possible, does Pardy.

“That’s the dream,” he says, “being based in Montreal and also getting work in other cities.” With independent companies like SaBooge and SideMart livening up the scene, “it’s starting to feel like it might be possible.”