Cheery disposition lands teen a TV role

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The young Inuk working at his dad's gift shop-video rental outlet in Iqaluit had bags under his eyes and his voice was practically gone. He had the flu and should've

been home in bed instead of serving the white-haired gentleman with the British accent looking for a polar bear carving.

But the 18-year-old pleasantly helped him, making small talk as he rang up the purchase.

Turned out his customer was director David Greene, who was in the Far North looking for Inuit actors for Frostfire, a made-for TV feature movie to be broadcast by the CBC later this year.

And less than a year later, Mosha Cote, who hadn't as much as uttered a line in front of a camera before, has one of the lead roles in the movie that was being shot in Vancouver in April.

"Thank God I was being so nice to him," recalls Cote in between rehearsals at old Shaughnessy Hospital.

Wearing jeans, high-tops and a grunge-inspired hooded plaid shirt, all from wardrobe, and his own black leather jacket, the "almost five-foot-eight" actor easily passes for the 16-year-old Inuk character Nelson Nagaruak.

Director Greene is the four-time Emmy winner whose work includes Roots, Small Sacrifices (featuring Farrah Fawcett as a mom who murders her small children), and more recently, the shot-in-Vancouver Beyond Obsession, with Victoria Principal as a Mommie Dearest-type.

In a break between shots, Greene confessed he initially thought he'd made a mistake asking Cote to read for him.

"For the first 15 minutes I thought he was hopeless....he was inexpressive, shy, fidgeting, didn't know about making eye contact - all the things you learn about making eye contact - all the things you learn about in acting school," said the tall, outspoken director, his straw-like white hair tamed by a baseball cap.

"But then he put down the script and he already knew the lines by heart and had all the nuances of the character down. I knew he had the potential."

Cote's character Nelson is a "troubled teen" who gets caught up in an international conspiracy involving a Russian scientist contaminated by radiation. A reporter, played by Wendy Crewson, takes him out of his northern element and into the big city as the plot thickens.

Watching Cote over three hours do several rehearsals and five takes of a short scene with the more seasoned actors, repeating his one line: "Is she going to be alright?" it appears it's not that big of a stretch for the actor. Like Nelson, Cote looks like he just tripped upon the scene.

Born and raised in Iqaluit, it's Cote's first visit to Vancouver, and he's left his community only a few times before for family trips and to play soccer in the Arctic Winter Games.

"I'm a lifer," he says impishly of life north of 60. "It's home and I love it there."

The movie has also taken him to Yellowknife and Taloyoak in the Northwest Territories and kept him on the road for almost two months.

"I'm homesick. I miss my family, I miss my girlfriend, I miss my friends," he says.

For someone who only fantasized about what it would be like to be on one of his favorite TV shows, like Kids in the Hall, Cote says he picked up on the routine the first day. His quick and easy smile has made him friends on the set. But he admits of being out of his element.

"I'm not used to being a stranger," he said. "I just don't like the feeling of not knowing all the people around me."

In his home town of 3,500 people, working in its hub, there's always someone to talk to.

"I come here and it's....silence," he says. And as if on cue to make his point, a makeup artist pokes her head into the lunch room and turns to leave without a greeting until Cote calls out "Hi."

When Cote's not in school, he's occasionally hitting the tundra with his older brothers to hunt caribou or seal to stock the family larder, or taking care of his sisters, two and four.

And he likes watching the occasional video - Amadeus is one of his favorites. "It has excellent music in it."

Besides Mozart, his usical tastes run to Eric Clapton, Talking Heads and Pink Floyd - "more of the old stuff, not all that dance and rap crap."

And like a typical teenager, Cote hasn't thought much beyond graduation, or about whether he will follow his older brothers to college.

"Just go with the flow, I guess."

That is, until now. "Cote has stars in his eyes.

"The more people talk about it to me, it keeps sounding better and better," he says.