Seeing young Cowichan Valley actors and performers featured in hit TV shows is not that unusual anymore, but when the rising star is a baby, you tend to go: whaaaat?
Presley Smith, who plays Sunny in the Netflix series Lemony Snicket’s A series of Unfortunate Events, is only a year old.
The daughter of former Lake Cowichan residents Mike Smith and model/actress Paige Lindquist, little Presley makes an adorable Sunny Baudelaire in the series, which is based on the series of 13 children’s novels.
According to her uncle, Shane Jung of Duncan, it’s been a really exciting time.
“Presley’s done an amazing job. I’m so proud of her,” he said.
Her mom was born and raised in Lake Cowichan and left for Japan a few years ago. She went to pursue her modelling career and while she was over there, she appeared in Tekken, a movie based on the video game.
She got an agent through that. And when A Series of Unfortunate Events casting came up her agent suggested Presley try out for the series. She was in a long list of kids trying out, but Presley got on the short list right away.
And soon they heard that she got the acting gig. Soon after that, the family picked up and moved to Vancouver so that she could complete the series. Her dad quit his job and found one in Vancouver and her mom quit her job and was the caregiver for Presley.
Presley will be two this summer.
The premiere, which was called The Black Carpet, was held Jan. 13.
“They flew to New York for that. Her dad got to take Presley down to New York for that, and they got the full treatment. He’s Mike Smith, played Lake Cowichan hockey. These are two families that have been in Lake Cowichan pretty much their entire lives.”
The series is on Netflix now and the reaction so far has been great, Jung said.
“They’ve [the reviews] been excellent. I’ve read them all. Jim Carrey shot the movie and now Neil Patrick Harris is doing the series and he has reviewed way better than Jim Carrey did, but he’s so modest. He’s been saying that they got 10 hours to do the series while Jim Carrey only got an hour and a half to do the film. Sunny has gotten her fair share of reviews herself.”
The first season, of eight episodes, has been renewed and crew and actors will be getting ready to start shooting a second season in May, according to Jung.
“They should probably have the premiere for that about this time next year,” he said. “It’s very exciting.”