Missisauga, Ontario
Liam Diaz’s role in ‘Scarborough’ based on novel by Catherine Hernandez
Charmaine Janis Rodriguez
FILIPINO-Canadian actor Liam Diaz is nominated as best actor in a leading role by the Canadian Screen Awards. He is 13.
Yes, you’ve read that right. He is not nominated as best child actor but will be contending against four other actors who are aged between 23 to their late 40s, according to a report by cbc.ca.
Diaz, who is from Mississauga, Ontario, will go down in history as the youngest Filipino actor ever to be nominated at the Canadian Screen Awards, which is Canada’s version of the Oscars.
The show, which honours Canadian talent in film and television, will be broadcast on CBC and CBC Gem at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday, April 10.
Since a 10-year-old child won the same award in 2016, Diaz now becomes the second-youngest actor to receive the nomination for his first lead role in the film Scarborough, an adaptation of a Catherine Hernandez novel.
The novel made Hernandez, who is also Filipino-Canadian, co-winner of the Asian-Canadian Writers’ Workshop Emerging Writers Award for fiction in 2015.
The film is also gaining more success for Hernandez and its producers. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2021 and is up for 11 nominations at the Canadian Screen Awards, including best feature film.
It was directed by Rich Williamson and Shasha Nakhai.
Since Diaz never acted in a movie before, the nomination is extra special.
Diaz played the role of Bing, a happy kid who loves to sing, but was bullied and comes from a low-income family relying on government support.
“Liam looked exactly like how we imagined Bing to be. We then went to see him perform in a musical [at his school], and asked him to come in for a callback three weeks later. He sang the Whitney song and that’s when we knew for sure,” Nakhai told cbc.ca.
Diaz sang Michael Jackson’s “Ben” during the audition and was asked to sing Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” during the callback.
He had to sing the said song in the film.
Aside from learning a new song, Diaz had to learn to be like Bing, whose life is totally different from his.
Diaz studies in a Catholic school in Mississauga and takes acting and singing classes during weekends at the Josie de Leon School of Performing Arts in Scarborough.
Diaz said he is still processing his acting nomination but he is excited.
“I feel like I actually accomplished something because acting in a movie is, like, one thing, but getting nominated for an award is something else,” he also told cbc.ca.
He added that he has a suit prepared but is yet to find the words to include in his acceptance speech.
The awards night is tomorrow, Sunday April 10 at CBC.