A Woman You Should Meet: Elysia Rotaru

Between zombies, serial killers and invading aliens, Elysia Rotaru keeps the Relevant Experience section of her resume very interesting. The actress (a proud Vancouverite) has had her fair share of weird story lines thanks to shows like iZombie and Motive, but has no plans of slowing down. She’s also getting a doctorate in Chinese medicine. Seriously.

Photos courtesy of Karolina Turek

You have so many projects on the go right now! Let’s chat about the new show iZombie.

I don’t want to spoil it for you too much, but my character Tess is a call girl who gets involved with the wrong individual. She and her group of friends end up kind of getting tortured by the guy who…well, you’ll see. The writers did a nice job of tying us in to enforcing what Liv is able to do with her new powers. So all in all, Tess is a call girl and she gets messed up with the wrong guy and it kind of goes from there.

What was the audition process like?

if I recall, the initial audition was looking for, like, an Eastern European, but I just went in and I did it with my Romanian dialect because that’s what I am, that’s my background. I took a big risk, I did something deviated totally away from what’s written on the paper, so I had no idea how it was really going to go. Then I got a call back and there was a bunch of Romanian girls there. I was like, ‘well this is interesting’. But later I got word that I booked the role of Tess.

You’re also in another show called Motive.

Motive is a really cool series, it’s like a crime drama and it explores the process of how they’re going to be able to catch the killer. They expose the victim and the killer at the beginning and the episode uses flashbacks to show you if they’re on the trail of the killer.

You seem to have a reoccurring theme with the Sci-Fi genre.

Yeah, it’s kind of my thing. I do adore it. It’s so fun because it takes you out of this realm of the everyday kind of functioning. It just allows your imagination to flow more as an actor. The other genre that I always just seem to attach to is, for some reason, horror, which is one of my favourite. So it’s kind of nice.

What would you say is the weirdest storyline you’ve been given?

I would have to say that it was for a short film that I did last year for the Crazy8’s Film Festival here in Vancouver called Earthlickers and it’s now being auctioned by Cinecoup to become a feature. It is hilariously funny. It is a bunch of women that came down to help save planet Earth by giving it a good licking. I just really love that because it was so surreal but real enough that it was dealing with a taboo idea of what’s happening down here on Earth.

Motive films in Vancouver. Are you happy about being able to stay in your home town and show it off to your cast-mates?

It’s a dream to shoot in Vancouver and not have to live out of a hotel for a certain amount of time or have to relocate completely. But then again, I would love to move to Toronto or LA or Bali or New York. For me, it’s about the work and I will have it take me where it needs me to go. As for my cast-mates, I’ve noticed that when they aren’t local per say, they’re the ones telling me about this new place they’ve been to that I haven’t heard of. Something that they just discovered.

I read that you work with healing and alternative medicines. Is that something you still keep up with?

Yes, I’m actually just finishing off my second year of a doctorate in traditional Chinese medicine, so I’m going into my third year in a couple of weeks, which is really cool.

How does that fit into your acting schedule?

It balances out actually. It is Chinese medicine, after all, and it’s all about balance. I don’t know, you feel magical when you’re working with herbs and needles and looking at peoples’ tongues, feeling peoples’ pulses. Every case is different, every day is different, your body is always changing. I’m just attracted to that. It’s this interesting concept that has over three thousand years of study and it still works, it still pertains to us today. It really keeps you in check with that side that people might not really be in touch with. I think it’s a really beautiful medicine and it helps Western medicine as well, like they both are interconnected in some way, shape or form. It also lets me put another awesome skill set onto my resume and see where that takes me also. It helps support your dreams of just having a good life.