Frances Louise McDormand is an American actress and producer. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, she has gained acclaim for her roles in small-budget independent films. McDormand has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and one Tony Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". Additionally, she has received three BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Mary Cynthia Walsh is a Canadian actress, comedian, and writer. She is known for her work on CODCO and This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Wendy Jane Crewson is a Canadian actress and producer. She began her career appearing on Canadian television, before her breakthrough role in 1991 dramatic film The Doctor.
Kathleen Robertson is a Canadian actress. She has starred in a number of films, and from 2011 to 2012 played the role of Kitty O'Neill in the Starz political drama series Boss. From 2014 to 2016, Robertson starred as homicide detective Hildy Mulligan in the TNT series Murder in the First. She also played Tina Edison in the Canadian sitcom Maniac Mansion (1990–1993) and Clare Arnold in the Fox teen drama series Beverly Hills, 90210 (1994–1997). In 2019, she played a main character in the series Northern Rescue.
Lawrence Hill is a Canadian novelist, essayist, and memoirist. He is known for his 2007 novel The Book of Negroes, inspired by the Black Loyalists given freedom and resettled in Nova Scotia by the British after the American Revolutionary War, and his 2001 memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada. The Book of Negroes was adapted for a TV mini-series produced in 2015. He was selected in 2013 for the Massey Lectures: he drew from his non-fiction book Blood: The Stuff of Life, published that year. His ten books include other non-fiction and fictional works, and some have been translated into other languages and published in numerous other countries.
Alfre Woodard is an American actress. Known for portraying strong-willed and dignified roles on stage and screen, she has received various accolades, including four Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Canadian Screen Awards, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, BAFTA Award and two Grammy Awards. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her as one of "The 25 Greatest Actors of the 21st Century". She is a board member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Colleen Rose Dewhurst was a Canadian-American actress mostly known for theatre roles. She was a renowned interpreter of the works of Eugene O'Neill on the stage, and her career also encompassed film, early dramas on live television, and performances in Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. One of her last roles was playing Marilla Cuthbert in the Kevin Sullivan television adaptations of the Anne of Green Gables series and her reprisal of the role in the subsequent TV series Road to Avonlea. In the United States, Dewhurst won two Tony Awards and four Emmy Awards for her stage and television work. In addition to other Canadian honors over the years, Dewhurst won two Gemini Awards for her portrayal of Marilla Cuthbert; once in 1986 and again in 1988. It is arguably her best known role because of the Kevin Sullivan produced series’ continuing popularity and also the initial co-production by the CBC; allowing for rebroadcasts over the years on it, and also on PBS in the United States. The initial broadcast alone was seen by millions of viewers.
S. Epatha Merkerson is an American actress. She has received accolades for her work, including an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, four NAACP Image Awards, two Obie Awards, and two Tony Award nominations. She is known for her portrayal of NYPD Lieutenant Anita Van Buren on the NBC police procedural drama series Law & Order, a role she played from 1993 to 2010, appearing in 388 episodes of the series. She is also known for playing Reba the Mail Lady on Pee-wee's Playhouse and Sharon Goodwin in the NBC medical drama Chicago Med since the series premiered in November 2015
Frances Hardman Conroy is an American actress. She is best known for playing Ruth Fisher on the television series Six Feet Under (2001–2005), for which she won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and received four Primetime Emmy Awards nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. She is also known for playing the older version of Moira O'Hara in season one of the television anthology series American Horror Story, which garnered Conroy her first Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television nomination, and as well a Primetime Emmy Awards nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. Conroy subsequently portrayed The Angel of Death, Myrtle Snow, Gloria Mott, Mama Polk, Bebe Babbitt, and Belle Noir on seven further seasons of the show: Asylum, Coven, Freak Show, Roanoke, Cult, Apocalypse, and Double Feature, respectively. Conroy is the fourth actor who has appeared in most seasons of the show. For her performance in Coven, she was nominated again for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Aunjanue L. Ellis is an American actress. She has appeared in numerous films, including Men of Honor (2000), Undercover Brother (2002), Ray (2004), Freedomland (2006), The Express: The Ernie Davis Story (2008), The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), The Help (2011), The Birth of a Nation (2016), and If Beale Street Could Talk (2018). For her portrayal of Oracene Price in the sports drama King Richard (2021), she was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Critics' Choice Award. In 2023, Ellis played Isabel Wilkerson in the drama film Origin.
The WGC Screenwriting Awards are administered by the Writers Guild of Canada, and are awarded to the best script for a feature film, television or radio project produced within the Guild's jurisdiction, written by a guild member in good standing, and broadcast or released in North America or screened at a Canadian film festival for the first time in the previous year.
Clement Virgo is a Canadian film and television writer, producer and director who runs the production company, Conquering Lion Pictures, with producer Damon D'Oliveira. Virgo is best known for co-writing and directing an adaptation of the novel by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes (2015), a six-part miniseries that aired on CBC Television in Canada and BET in the United States.
Amber Marshall is a Canadian actress, singer, and equestrian. She has appeared in several television films and series, most notably as Amy Fleming in the long-running CBC/Up TV series Heartland. For her performance in the series, Marshall won the inaugural Canada's Screen Star Award at the 1st Canadian Screen Awards.
Amanda Brugel is a Canadian actress. Born and raised in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, she made her acting debut in the drama film Vendetta (1999). This was followed by roles in the comedy film A Diva's Christmas Carol (2000), the slasher horror film Jason X (2001), the comedy film Sex After Kids (2013), for which she won an ACTRA Award for Best Female Performance, the satirical drama film Maps to the Stars (2014), the independent drama film Room (2015), the superhero film Suicide Squad (2016), the drama film Kodachrome (2017), and the action thriller film Becky (2020).
Oluwunmi Mosaku is a Nigerian-born English actress. She is known for her roles as Joy in the BBC Two miniseries Moses Jones (2009) and Holly Lawson in the ITV series Vera (2011–2012). She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Gloria Taylor in the TV film Damilola, Our Loved Boy (2016). In 2019, she starred in the fifth series of Luther. In 2020, she starred as Ruby Baptiste in HBO's Lovecraft Country, and starting in 2021, starred as Hunter B-15 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) television series Loki.
Claire Elizabeth Foy is a British actress. She is best known for her portrayal of the young Queen Elizabeth II in the first two seasons of the Netflix series The Crown (2016–2017) for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
The Book of Negroes is a 2007 novel from Canadian writer Lawrence Hill. In the United States, Australia and New Zealand, the novel was published under the title Someone Knows My Name.
Moira Walley-Beckett is a Canadian television actress, producer, and writer. She was a writer and producer for the AMC drama Breaking Bad and the creator of two television series, Flesh and Bone and Anne with an E.
The Book of Negroes is a 2015 television miniseries based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Canadian writer Lawrence Hill. The book was inspired by the British freeing and evacuation of former slaves, known as Black Loyalists, who had left rebel masters during the American Revolutionary War. The British transported some 3,000 Black Loyalists to Nova Scotia for resettlement, documenting their names in what was called the Book of Negroes.
Dalila Bela is a Canadian-American actress who is known for her role as Agent Olive on the TVOKids/PBS series Odd Squad (2014–2015), in films such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2012), and work on television shows such as Once Upon a Time (2015) and Anne with an E (2017–2019).
