If you don’t already know June Laporte, you should get to know them and their work immediately.
After Laporte’s acclaimed performance in the Canadian film You Can Live Forever (which premiered at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival), Laporte has been in audience favourites such as Star Trek: Discovery, Wild Cards, and The Last of Us.
Currently, Laporte can be seen in the drama mini-series American Hostage, alongside Jon Hamm, William Jackson Harper, Mireille Enos, Kristoffer Polaha, Lisa Codrington, and Giovanni Ribisi.
Laporte holds their own against a stacked cast, a testament to their prowess as an actor. In the series, Laporte portrays Ginny, a young go-getter who has been waiting for her big break in the newsroom. Finally, it seems she has achieved just that, but a hostage crisis was not how she expected to land her first big story.
After the show premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), and premiered on Crave in Canada and MGM+ in the US, I had the opportunity to chat with Laporte about their work on the series, their desire to be part of a Star Wars project one day, Greek mythology, and much more.
Watch the full interview with June Laporte below:
When taking on the role of Ginny in American Hostage, Laporte revealed what initially drew them to the character and the script.
“You know, I think growing up, I was always really interested in true crime. In some ways, I was always interested in the psychology around why people do what they do, which is, I think, why I’m an actor now, and so when I first got the script and I saw the audition for Ginny, I was so interested in the world of this actual hostage crisis. I hadn’t heard of it before, so I like did my deep divey research, and I was just really, really interested in all of these men and the way that their lives intersect in this critical period of 63 hours. And I just thought it would be amazing to be a part of that and play a woman who’s a part of the team trying to tell this story,” Laporte said.
Since Ginny was a character that was added to the series, Laporte was able to create a backstory for the character during the process and flesh the character out in their mind to inform their performance.
“Yes, totally. I love that because there is a kind of, well, there’s a seriousness that we all, I think, took the story on board with because we were taking elements mostly from real life from this hostage crisis and also expanding and creating some stories around it. And yeah, Ginny was one of those. And I just love being able to flesh out this character because for me, as an actor, my biggest nightmare is like not knowing why I’m there, not knowing who is this character, how did she end up here? And so, I knew I had to build that out for myself. Otherwise, I was just I was just going to be stressed and not having a good time,” Laporte explained.
This added to Laporte’s research for the role, specifically to flesh out Ginny’s character.
“So yeah, it was fun to get to look up and create how a how a young woman might have found herself in radio journalism in the ’70s in Indianapolis and kind of like look up what a high school program might have looked like for, you know, extracurriculars for radio journalism, and like what college curriculum would have looked like, and the tenets and things that she would have studied. So I had a lot of fun with that,” Laporte shared.
For those who have yet to watch the series, you should know that Laporte describes Ginny as a character who is “stepping into her own confidence” in the series.
“I would describe Ginny as dedicated, dutiful in some ways, a rigorous researcher, passionate about the telling of the story and getting the story, and learning to trust her own voice. I think stepping into her own confidence and her own journalistic voice,” Laporte said.
Relaying how acting, directing, writing, and theatre work informed their creative process, Laporte told me that they inform each other.
“Yeah, I think that they all do really inform each other, and definitely my favourite directors to work with often have an acting background and are writers. And I feel like it’s this beautiful kind of triad of just – it’s all around understanding character and understanding human psychology, and the more that those are all kind of like speaking and informing each other, I just think the better the final product is in terms of like showing a character on screen,” Laporte explained.
After working in many different genres over the past few years (as mentioned above), Laporte expressed gratitude for having worked on varied stories across different types of film and TV.
“I feel so grateful for all the projects that I’ve gotten to be a part of because I do feel like I’ve gotten to, like, dip my toes into a lot of different genres, which is so fun for me, creatively. I am such a big fan of the sci-fi genre. You know, it would be my dream to be in something Star Wars. The Star Wars franchise – let’s like manifest that one day. In terms of what I haven’t gotten to do yet, I mean, I’ve gotten to do projects like this, but I always love doing more of you know, real, true psychological stories about complex humans. Whether that’s in, you know, a horror film, a more genre film, or a thriller, like I love that stuff. A lot of people ask me, ‘Do you get weighed down when shooting something like that?’ And I love it. I know how to take care of myself in that. And those are the projects – like those meaty things are so satisfying for me,” Laporte shared.
Not only is Laporte a fan of Star Wars and the sci-fi genre, but they’re also a fan of Greek mythology. Since Laporte has experience in writing and directing as well, I wanted to know whether there are any characters or stories in Greek mythology they would be interested in bringing to life on screen.
“Oh my gosh, I love this question. That’s so exciting to me! Gosh, I really feel like so much of it has been done. So I might not direct or create something around this world, but I really love the Orpheus myth. The Orpheus and Eurydice myth is so cool, and Hadestown is one of my most favourite musicals of all time. I also love the Persephone and Hades myth. Psyche and Eros. I’m kind of talking about these like love stories, but I think it’d be really cool to see. Something of Artemis – I’d love to see Artemis more as, you know, maybe like a modern retelling or a modern-day version of her standing in her own, just done with the patriarchy. That would be really, really cool,” Laporte shared.
Lastly, I asked Laporte if there are any upcoming projects audiences can look forward to. While they couldn’t reveal too much, they said they are looking forward to writing and directing more.
“Oh yes, I do love this question. I am working on something right now that is lovely and exciting, and I can’t share what it is yet. So stay tuned for that, and yeah, looking forward to writing and directing more for myself as well,” Laporte revealed.
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