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Tales from One would think that playing a princess is every girl's childhood fantasy. But according to Audrey Gardiner, there's a lot more to it than wearing a tiara, looking beautiful and smiling. "You have to convey a powerful presence, great wisdom and infinite love - without coming across as a cartoon," says the young actress who portrays the Childlike Empress and Moonchild in The Neverending Story. The Childlike Empress is the ageless, guileless and benevolent ruler of Fantasia. Ruling from the Ivory Tower, she is the heart and soul of this magical kingdom. "She is an all-knowing empress on the side of goodness and light, but I have to be very careful not to turn her into a fairy tale character. It is important to me that people believe she is human and real," she says. According to Gardiner, it is both a responsibility and a challenge to play such a larger than life personality. "I have to act with total conviction and sincerity and put my soul into my words, almost like in the expression 'wearing your heart on your sleeve'," Gardiner says. The most difficult scenes in The Neverending Story for Gardiner have been the ones in which the Childlike Empress is dying from The Nothing, the same illness that plagues Fantasia. The Nothing robs people of their hopes, passions and yearnings, their imagination and their sense of wonder. "I had to act as if I was in terrible pain and on death's doorsteps, but at the same time, I had to be strong for everyone else and convey an ever-present fearlessness and goodness. To keep me in the right frame of mind I kept thinking of a woman I knew who had suffered terribly from cancer but maintained her dignity and pleasantness to the day she died." In fact, the Childlike Empress does not die. She is revived and reborn when Bastian, a boy in the real world who is reading the "Neverending Story" book, gives her a new name, Moonchild. One of the mysterious story lines in The Neverending Story is the Childlike Empress's relationship with her sister, Xayide, the Dark Princess. Xayide lurks in the Seeing Hand Palace of the Dark City. Orphaned as children, the two sisters were trained in the healing and creative powers. They were taught to be just rulers, using their powers only for the good of Fantasia. The Childlike Empress took these lessons to heart, and she is fair and tolerant, a wise leader who accepts all. She has a profound, spiritual connection to all life in Fantasia, and while nothing can exist without her, the onslaught of The Nothing has weakened her physically. But Xayide's mission is to attain supreme power by unleashing The Nothing throughout Fantasia. Xayide hates the Childlike Empress who has magical powers and is loved by all Fantasians. On the other hand, the Childlike Empress loves her, even though she's evil. "I think that she's evil because she is afraid, angry and hurt. Therefore, my relationship with her has to be a nurturing one." In one scene, Xayide leads an army of Dark Knights against the Childlike Empress, who is alone on horseback. But the Empress can battle this army with a single look. "I have to appear non-threatening towards Xayide because a challenge would really fuel her anger or jealousy… With my eyes and with my demeanour, I have to tell Xayide that I know she is hurting, but I can help her," says Gardiner. Even though Gardiner is graduating in the spring of 2001 from Concordia University with a Journalism/Political Science degree, she is planning to continue on with her acting career. "All my schoolwork, whether broadcasting or newspaper writing, has revolved around performance. What is a written assignment? It is a performance on paper. People read it, receive something from it and associate my name to it," says Gardiner. Gardiner has been passionate about acting since she had the starring role in the theatrical production of Annie at the age of 8. "Every year after that I did one play. I also took Saturday morning theatre workshops for kids." Two years ago Gardiner started modelling for catalogues and hair products. Last year she landed her first television role in Are You Afraid of the Dark? Since then she's had roles in All Souls, Vampire High and Largo Winch. |
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