Don't go calling Chantal Kreviazuk a singer/actress just yet.

Yes, the Juno-winning Winnipeg musician and her husband, Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida, recently wrapped their first film roles in David Weaver's feature film Century Hotel.

Yes, she plays herself in an upcoming episode of Global TV's new music-industry comedy Big Sound.

Yes, she is going to be in the Toronto production of The Vagina Monologues from Dec. 26 to 31.

And yes, she has an acting agent.

But Kreviazuk says she doesn't really feel comfortable calling herself "an actor."

Musical roles

"All three of the acting endeavours I'm involved with have been fun but with Century Hotel they're musical roles, and on Big Sound I'm basically playing a comic version of myself," she says over the phone from Toronto, just prior to jetting to Winnipeg. "They're basically pretty obvious extensions of what I already do."

In Century Hotel, Maida plays a '60s musician named Damon Riley who becomes entwined with Kreviazuk's character, a hotel maid named Mary who ends up stealing his songs. The pair were supposed to co-star in Big Sound, which made its debut last week with an episode starring Jann Arden, but Maida's schedule wouldn't allow it.

"So then the episode was supposed to be about me bitching to my manager about not being with him all the time," Kreviazuk says.

"But I thought it would be funnier, and make me look a little less pathetic, if I was complaining about not getting any sex because we're apart all the time," she laughs.

"I mean, I don't whine like that -- or about that -- in real life, but it was fun to do it for TV show."

Asked if she is going to do more acting in the future, Kreviazuk is hesitant.

"Whether or not I'm easing into something more with all this ... I don't honestly know at the moment."

The singer's immediate future includes a contest-winners-only show tonight at a Winnipeg Sun-sponsored event at Alley Catz, getting ready for Christmas at home in Toronto and preparing herself for The Vagina Monologues.

January brings a coast-to-coast Canadian tour with Barenaked Ladies, possibly followed by a U.S. jaunt. Then she says she should be ready to record her new album.

"I've been writing and some songs are pretty much finished," she says, citing a tune called G.I. Joe which she debuted at the War Child 2000 concert at The Forks in September.

Politics and love

"I've even begun conceptualizing visuals for some of the songs. As with my past work, they're pretty honest songs about emotion, politics and love -- all of those things."

No dates have been set for recording, but Kreviazuk says both Maida and Mercury Rev's David Fridmann could end up producing songs on the album.

"I'm feeling like being a little more collaborative, production-wise, than I was on the last album," she says.

While she is aware that The Vagina Monologues is coming to Winnipeg next April, Kreviazuk says she can't say whether she'll be taking part.

"I don't know whether I'll be available," she laughs. "And we'll have to see how I do on Boxing Day."

By: John Kendle