Hide Article Text (OCR)
Stepto: Degrassi role \iSpike’ appeals to teensHALIFAX (CP) — Amanda Stepto is both one of Canada’s best-known and least-known TV stars.Almost everyone recognizes her instantly as Spike, the pregnant 14-year-old student with the weird haircut on the CBC's award-winning series Degrassi Junior High.But few people know her real name. To them, Spike and Stepto are one and the same.A lot of people think Pm 14 and pregnant,” says Stepto.“A lot of kids think my name is actually Spike, and that’s what they call me.”Stepto is actually 18 and hasn’t been pregnant. But the trademark haircut is real.It’s not hard to understand Spike's appeal. Teen pregnancies have never been portrayed on television over such a long time and few have involved a character as young. Spike spent much of last year’s Degrassi season enduring teen pregnancy.First there was denial, then confrontations with her mother and her boyfriend. Then there were the prejudices of her friends and the school administration.Into laborFinally, in last season's closer, she went into labor.“Someone will come up to me and tell me about everything that happened to them,” Stepto said during a recent visit to Halifax. And what can I say? They just think I went through the same thing.But I didn’t, it was my character.”This type of confusion is bound to increase. Since mov- j ing to prime time, Degrassi’s audience has grown to 1.9 million, making it Canada’s highest-rated drama.Two weeks ago the show ! cleaned up at Canada’s Ge-i mini Awards, winning the best dramatic series, best direction and best actor awards. It also has won an international Emmy and a prestigious | Rockie award.Stepto occasionally gets let-1 ters from teenage mothers, i “I don’t want to give themI advice because I think it de-. pends on the person. I just try [ to tel! them the choices they i have. I never really give solid i i advice. I’m not the person they should talk to. ” 1Stepto was a student at a 1Toronto high school for the performing arts when she auditioned for Degrassi 2% years ago. She spent six episodes as an extra before Spike’s character was bom.They were looking for someone to get pregnant because they wanted to deal with that issue. At first they wanted Stephanie (another Degrassi character) to get pregnant.But that would be too obvious. You can’t just say the promiscuous girls get pregnant. A lot of people gel pregnant, not just the slutty ones.”Future episodesStepto has definite ideas on what should happen to Spike in future epidodes.I’d like to see something | where she gets really fed up with the responsibilities she has and takes off — goes somewhere just to get away from it all.But what I’d really like is an episode where I'm laughing. I’m always asking, ‘Can't I smile?’ ”When Spike decided to keep her baby during the season's premiere last month, it was ^portrayed as a decision she came to on her own. IBut as Degrassi writer-re- |searcher Loretta Casteilarin ]knows, Spike’s decision and ’came only after a pile of work 1behind the cameras. IWe began with researching 1the latest in published material on the subject. Casteilarin says. It has to be up-to-date. Then we contact professors in those specific fields. Eventually. I'll try to contact young people who are actually living it.”All this research results in !Degrassi episodes that deal .with frank issues like child ■abuse, alcoholism and, of course, teenage pregnancy.
Newspaper Details
Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg, Manitoba, CA
Thu, Dec 15, 1988
Page 48
Full Page
Clipped by
Aarron L.
USA 13 Apr 2021
Other Publications Near Winnipeg, Manitoba
Winnipeg Courrier du Nord Ouest
Winnipeg Tribune
Winnipeg Free Press Sunday
Winnipeg Manitoban
Winnipeg Free Press
