Episode 185: Crystal Balint

The YVR Screen Scene Podcast

Crystal Balint has taken us to some fascinating places, eras, and moments in time and space on both screen and stage. On screen, she took us to 1950s San Francisco as the lead in BritBox’s The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco, and into the heart and life of Iris Bearden, a former cryptographer turned brilliant sleuth. As Grace on Disney XD’s Mech X4, she made us laugh and feel big feelings as she struggled to accept the fact that her sons were the pilots of a giant monster-fighting robot. Crystal has taken us along with her to a lot of universes and genres, from Arrow to Rachel Talalay’s A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting, from The 100 to Prison Break to The Good Doctor.

In theatre, Crystal has taken us to emotional states where stage and screen collide: like in Helen Lawrence, the phenomenal collaboration between artist Stan Douglas and television screenwriter Chris Haddock that set a film noir story in post-World War Two Vancouver; and in the musical City of Angels, about a writer trying to adapt his novel into a screenplay, and the world of the film he is writing. And Crystal took us to the mountaintop as Camae in Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop, a two-hander that imagines Dr. Martin Luther King’s last night on Earth.

It’s still unclear where Crystal will take us in Midnight Mass. The highly anticipated supernatural horror series – from the team that brought us The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor – hits Netflix on September 24. Much about Midnight Mass is still shrouded in mystery, but here’s what’s been released so far: “An isolated island community experiences miraculous events – and frightening omens – after the arrival of a charismatic, mysterious young priest.”

In this riveting episode of the #YVRScreenScenePodcast, Crystal previews Midnight Mass and shares how she started on her path in the first place – and also where, among the multitude of characters and projects and genres she’s inhabited or visited, she feels most at home. Episode sponsor: UBCP/ACTRA