BY: Kristine Maitland

SHE’S THE FACE that Trekkers, Star Wars fiends and Battlestar Galactica aficionados have come to know and love. Canadian Natasha Eloi has carved out her niche as Toronto’s resident sci-fi queen — but it hasn’t been an easy ascent into the heavens. Sway spoke with the cosmic girl while on location in Toronto.

Sway: Let’s start at the beginning — you went to Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute. Didn’t Mike Myers go there?

Eloi: My teacher, Howard Gross, would let new students who entered the radio and television program know this was the school that Mike Myers got his start in. And there are other [alumni] before him: Dominic Sciullo, the original videographer for CityTV — he was an instrumental mentor for me.

S: Did you become a TV intern during that high-school period?

E: Yes. In your last semester you are asked where you want to go and you are given three options. Given my short blonde hair, leather jacket and 18-hole steel toe boots was not the most conservative appearance, I chose CityTV. The school gave me the telephone number, and I had to do the legwork and I got in.

S: I find it funny that in order to get in front of the camera you had to hold it.

E: I never wanted to be in front of the camera, originally.

S: No?

E: No, that wasn’t in the game plan. I wanted to be a cameraperson. I took different roots from my internships to landing on the LiveEye, being one of the first women on it. I just did everything I had to from pulling cable to dragging equipment. I wanted the truck and I wanted the camera, but it didn’t happen that way. I ended up getting the camera, but it was attached to the LiveEye truck; so I was allowed to shoot, but it was always live. I never got the camera until I came to SpaceTelevision and to get the camera I had to be in front of the camera too.

S: So when did you come to Space?

E: In January 2000. When I was first hired for Space, it was to be the SpaceNews videographer. My background is technical. Truth be known, I was not good at science in school, but I am not one to let obstacles interfere or hinder me so I put the demo together. When I got the job, I had to ask myself if I wanted it as I was in my comfort zone doing news. It was literally my university, the University of Moses [Znaimer], but you’ve got to leave the nest and prove that you can do what you have been trained to do.

S: Pam Grier is one of your role models. Like you, she initially did not intend to be in front of the camera.

E: Really! When I meet new up-and-coming young women who are coming into this industry, I tell them to learn how television is made. Being in front of that camera is the cherry on top of the cake. Now, myself as a videographer, I have done well — I understand the full circle of how that works.