Interview with Cindy Busby

Mercy: Can you share a little bit about yourself?
Cindy: I’m originally from Montreal, Canada.  My family still lives there.  I went to theater school and I just kind of always knew I wanted to be an actor. I feel like it has always been a part of my life – performing and having a great imagination. Just loving to be a part of a story, create stories, and tell stories.  I feel really grateful that I get to do that for a living because it’s not easy, but somehow it happened!
I’m someone who really loves people, I love spending time with friends. I love to travel and experience new things.

Mercy: What sparked your interest in becoming an actress?
Cindy: I guess it’s probably somewhat based on loving to perform. I did a lot of theater growing up. I loved that immediate satisfaction of being able to affect people that were watching in the audience. You know, to make them laugh, cry, make them be in awe. There’s just some sort of feeling inside of me that felt really rewarded and felt really good when I did that. I pursued telling stories. I love learning about human behavior and being able to show different sides of the world and have people live something through that.  I just always knew I was going to be an actor and somehow it all worked out.

Mercy: How do you prepare yourself for a role?
Cindy: Well, there are so many different ways and, of course, every actor has a different way of doing that. For me, it’s about reading the script several times, breaking down each scene, and every moment what the various emotional changes and turmoil could be; the action in the scene. Figuring out what my character’s struggles are and what she has to do to get what she wants.  I think it’s really important when breaking down a script to do all that work, understand your character’s history and why they’re doing what they’re doing in that particular scene. But then also, being able to go on set know all that knowledge but then take a step back away from that and live in the moment. Connect with your partner.  Once you’ve done all the work, that stays with you, the emotional imprint of what you’ve learned about your character. And to me, then you can just be in the moment and be connected. Because if you’re just in your head thinking about, “Why is my character doing this?” then you’re not really there and it’s not as interesting because human behavior is more interesting than that. That’s what I like to do.

Mercy: Who is an actor or actress that you would like to work with?
Cindy: I would choose two people, one of which would probably be Emma Stone. I think it would be really fun to do a movie with her – a comedy. Because, funny enough, she’s the person that I get told I look like or remind people the most of, which I think is cool because I love her! I think she’s super funny and talented and she just seems like a really cool person. And then Reese Witherspoon, as well. I think she’s had a great career and she’s done so much variety and I think she’s maintained a good lifestyle balance between being a very famous actor and being a mom and a good person. I feel like working with her would be amazing. She’s been in the industry forever, so that’s pretty cool.

Mercy: What is your favorite thing about working with Hallmark Channel?
Cindy: My favorite thing is the fans, actually! Hallmark fans are the most supportive, most loyal people and they will follow you and be there for you no matter what you do; and that I appreciate.  They’re really there for you and are always rooting for you.  It’s like having your own little cheerleader on the sidelines.  I definitely think Hallmark has some of the best fans in the world!  I’m very lucky to have them on my side. 

Mercy: What was your favorite part of being in “My Boyfriend’s Back: Wedding March 5”?
Cindy: Oh, 100% the cast and crew!  I just had the best time working with everyone.  It was so fun and we genuinely really liked hanging out together.  In between scenes, we’d always talk and we hung out after work. We just loved to talk, laugh, make jokes, and tease one another, prank one another. Of course, the movie and the story itself I really loved; I love the character of Annalise that I get to play. But I think that the energy we have behind the scenes really shows up onscreen and I think that’s going to be pretty obvious when people see the movie. That’s pretty exciting because that’s something you can’t really fake, the chemistry between people, and we definitely have that in this movie.

Mercy: Is there a fun behind-the-scenes story you can share from on set?
Cindy: Yeah! There are so many good moments, but doing the behind-the-scenes videos (basically Hallmark brings on a crew to film behind the scenes of us making the movie and then they interview some of the cast about their characters and everything) and I remember when I was doing my interview, I was talking and then all of the sudden, out of nowhere Jack Wagner just walks through my interview as a joke. We just played it off like, “He’s such a diva, always needing the spotlight.” And then without even knowing what Jack was doing, Josie accidentally came through my interview following him. She wasn’t even trying to be funny, she just did it by accident. That was a pretty funny moment for me. They didn’t really show that in the interviews, but that was a pretty funny moment caught on tape *laughs*.

Mercy: Lastly, any other upcoming projects you can share about?
Cindy: I have a movie coming out called Web Of Dreams. It is a 5-part series of movies based on the books by V.C. Andrews and it’s going to be a good one! I’m definitely excited about that, but it won’t be until the end of summer.