By Stephanie Pollard

Yanna McIntosh always had a natural attraction to the spotlight. She remembers putting on puppet plays with her cousin when she was small and being interested in theatre club in high school.

But acting did not take centre stage in her life until university. “It wasn’t like a lightning bolt or anything,” she says. “It wasn’t a conscious thought of, ‘Now, I’m going to be an actor’ — at least not until university when a director from Germany said to me, ‘You know, you should [act].’”

The advice eventually led McIntosh to enroll in theatre school at the Harvard University-housed American Repertory Theater Institute, while she was still an elementary school teacher. From there, she went on to receive a Gemini, two Dora Awards and expanded her acting from the stage to television (This is Wonderland and A Raisin in the Sun) and major motion pictures (John Q and Heaven on Earth).

But McIntosh’s repertoire sometimes was not enough for the film industry, which is decidedly harder for Black women. Although the actress says there are challenges you would expect, she also found that the film industry is slanted towards people who have money and power.

This made it difficult to land the roles she wanted and knew she deserved. “I always had to have this label of being a ‘Black actress’ or there often had to be some reason why they’d cast me in the story,” she says of her experience. “As I stayed on, the challenge also became for me to not apologize for being there and to not carry any sort of chip on my shoulder.”

This combination caused McIntosh to gravitate back to the stage, where she became a constant at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. This season she played Hermione in the The Winter’s Tale and her past roles include Lady MacBeth in MacBeth and the fairy queen Titania in the comic fantasy A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The accomplished actress even has special words of encouragement for young Black women hoping to enjoy a successful acting career: “Really, really know your stuff,” McIntosh says. “Know what you’re about, know what you’re there to do. Also, keep your eyes on that prize. Don’t let anyone sway you from your goals. If you are committed, determined and know your stuff, you will prevail.”