Sara Waisglass

Filming as a School for Staying Sharp

Sara Waisglass joined the set of Degrassi: The Next Generation at just fifteen years old. She was no ordinary newcomer, since she had already logged plenty of experience in children's productions such as Overruled! starting in 2009. Her role as Frankie Hollingsworth gave her a stable platform for six straight seasons.

The Canadian industry is often a tough testing ground, but she kept up with the workload of a youth series with more than twenty episodes per season. Back then, the volume of dialogue she had to memorize was enormous. That toughens up any actor before they reach adulthood.

And the gamble paid off.

By the time the series ended in 2017, the actress was already looking for projects with a different dramatic weight. She didn't want to repeat the perfect teen image. So she turned to smaller productions to test her limits outside Toronto's commercial circuit.

The Weight of Bitter Comedy

In 2021, Ginny & Georgia premiered on a global streaming platform. Waisglass plays Maxine Baker (a character who requires an almost superhuman speaking speed). She filmed the first season under extreme safety conditions due to the health restrictions of the time.

The series racked up 52 million views in its first 28 days on air. But the audience success didn't distract her from her technical training. In 2020, she finished her studies in screenwriting at York University. This academic foundation lets her read scripts from a structural perspective, not just an acting one.

She knows that good dialogue is worth more than a long close-up. After all, an actor is just one piece of a machine that she hopes to control from the producer's chair in the future.

Sometimes silence is the best promotion.

Away from the spotlight, she published a poetry book titled The Art of Breaking Glass in 2016. It's not common for a young actress to open up this way before turning twenty. Most prefer to manage their public image through aggressive talent agencies, but she chose the written word to channel the pressure of early fame.

Restraint and New Range

In 2024, she starred in the film Suze alongside Maya Rudolph. Filming took place in Ontario, and critics praised the dry chemistry between the two actresses. For this project, she had to tone down the theatrical style of her previous TV work. The script demanded a restraint few expected from someone shaped by the frantic pace of teen series.

While filming her final scenes in 2024, it became clear that her screen presence suited independent film better than casting directors had initially thought. Filming wrapped in just twenty-two intense working days.

But her commitment to major productions remains. The contract for the third season of Ginny & Georgia was signed with a very strict temporary exclusivity clause covering the entire main cast. Working days in 2025 often exceed twelve hours a day on location in sub-zero temperatures.

The estimated production budget for these episodes in 2025 is around five million dollars per installment.