Kandyse McClure-Putting Herself in the Driver's Seat
- Charles Zuckermann
- 5 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
An exclusive with the Battlestar Galactica & Virgin River star.
Strapless Tiered Feather Gown by Catherine Regehr
Subject: Kandyse McClure
Occupation: Actor & Producer
Photographer: Charles Zuckermann
Makeup & Hair: Molly Etherington
Stylist: Sarah D’Arcey
Editors: Bethany Brown & Charles Zuckermann
Cover Design: Bethany Brown
Sponsored by Peakmode PR
With 75 IMDB credits to her name you can catch Kandyse in such projects as Virgin River, Battlestar Galactica, Allegiance, Motherland:Fort Salem, Ghost Wars and so many more.
Top: Saint Laurent
Pants: Gucci
How We First Clicked
Charles first met Kandyse through friends while dancing around and shooting pics at the UBCP/ACTRA gala almost 7 years ago. Next time we met we were shooting Gen Zeroes with the incomparable Aleks Paunovic. Since then we just keep on running into each other. Just the way it goes in this biz.
Bethany and Kandyse first met each other at Comicon San Diego. They were doing a show together. They have been good friends ever since.
Blazer: Altuzarra
Shorts: Dolce & Gabbana
Shoes: Dior
Our Q&A with Kandyse where she shares stories form her life as an actor and how she outs herself first when it comes to her career.
What's a piece of advice you wish someone had told you sooner?
That longevity is the goal, not momentum. When you're starting out, you measure everything by what's happening right now—the audition, the callback, booking the job. Nobody tells you that the real game is whether you're still standing twenty years in. Rest is not laziness. Saying no to the wrong things is risky, but sometimes necessary. Building a life outside of the work is not a distraction from it; it's actually what keeps your cup full. I wish someone had said that to me before I spent years running on empty and calling it perseverance.
Favourite gig you've worked on and why?
Tempted to say Virgin River because I really love playing Kaia, but it has to be Battlestar Galactica. Not the most surprising answer, but maybe not for the reason people think. It wasn't the role itself—though Dee was extraordinary to live in. It was the container the show created.
Ron Moore built something that asked a lot of every single person on that set—emotionally, intellectually, physically—and the ensemble rose to meet it every time. Eddie and Mary too. There was no slacking, no being unprepared. I was in my mid-twenties, still figuring out who I was as a person, and I got to do that inside a story that was genuinely asking the biggest questions: What makes us human? What do we owe each other? What are we willing to destroy to survive?
I grew up on that show. I don't think I'd trade that experience for anything.
Jacket: Hour Hammour
Was there a job that flipped a switch where you thought, "Okay, I am an actor"?
It took me a really long time to get to a place where I felt comfortable calling myself an actor, if I’m being honest. It still sometimes feels like a dream.
A moment comes to mind from a few years ago on the set of Motherland: Fort Salem. I was blocking a scene and offered a bit of business—a small gesture between the characters—which ended up making it into the show. I remember thinking: wow, this really lives inside me. I have valid instincts and a sense of how things play. It's a second skin now. I inhabit this.
A really humbling feeling, actually.
What's the best part about being an actor?
Permission. This job gives you permission to be fully inside a human experience that isn't yours—someone else's grief, someone else's rage, someone else falling in love—and to feel it completely, without apology.
Most people spend their whole lives learning to manage their emotions. Actors spend their whole lives learning to inhabit them. There's something rebellious about that. I find it genuinely joyful, even when the material is devastating. Especially when the material is devastating.
Best food you've ever had on set?
The caterers on Battlestar Galactica were next level. They could make anything. True chefs in every sense of the word, and they made sure we had something for every kind of dietary requirement. And just because it was healthy didn't mean it compromised on flavour.
Our crafty on Virgin River is pretty great too. She makes fresh-baked cookies that she brings out on days when folks need a morale boost. It does the job.
One Shoulder Sequin Sheath by Catherine Regehr
How did you move from booking principal roles into series regulars or leads? What's the real secret, if there is one?
The real secret is that it's not about getting better at auditioning. It's about becoming someone who is impossible to forget and easy to trust.
The technical stuff matters, of course—be prepared, be specific, know your lines cold so you can actually play. But what really moves the needle at that level is relationships and reputation. Casting directors and producers talk. They remember who was generous on set, who came prepared, who didn’t make things complicated. They remember who made their job easier.
Every job is an audition for the next one—not in an anxious, performative way, but in a real way. You are always showing people who you are.
And then there's the part nobody says: you have to be willing to be seen as specific. Not a blank canvas. Not “versatile” in the bland sense. A point of view. A presence with edges.
The roles that mattered came when I stopped trying to be what I thought they wanted and started trusting that what I actually am was enough. That took years. It was worth it.
Funniest on-set memory that still makes you laugh?
Every time Mary McDonnell got the giggles on Battlestar Galactica. We’d have to take a break because her laughter is incredibly contagious.
We were in the middle of a Cylon invasion sequence—running around the ship, scared for our lives—and she started laughing. Then we all did. Sometimes I wouldn’t even know what I was laughing at, just that my face hurt. We'd have to break the scene and collect ourselves.
It makes me smile just thinking about it.
Suit and Handbag: Chanel
courtesy of Turnabout Luxury
Finish this sentence: "Being an actor in Vancouver taught me _______."
That work ethic and quality relationships will always outlast the industry's opinion of you. Make the work good. Keep yourself recognizable to people you love and respect. The rest is just the weather.
What's your "I almost quit" moment and what made you stay?
There have genuinely been more than one—I won’t pretend otherwise. The one that comes to mind first was a stretch in my late twenties when I watched people around me book things I was right for, and I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. The silence was loud, and I was exhausted from trying to interpret it.
I remember seriously considering whether I had enough of a self outside of work to just… start over. Go back to school. Open a cleaning business.
What made me stay wasn’t a booking or a sign from the universe. It was a conversation with someone who knew me well enough to say: you’re not actually considering quitting—you’re considering whether you’re allowed to be tired.
And they were right. I was tired. I wasn’t done. There’s a difference. It took me a long time to learn how to tell them apart.
Suit: Saint Laurent courtesy of
Shoes: Dior
Tie: Vintage Dior
If you were reading this article ten years ago, what do you wish it would've told you?
That there is no one right way to do this work. There are many paths, and everyone is just figuring out their own. It's good to know the methods and approaches, to hear what other people have done, but you have to develop your own process. That's your job—to refine that process and make it wholly true to you.
There is no guarantee that you will get where you want to go, but the process of becoming that person—the life you live in the in-between—is a huge part of the story, arguably the more meaningful part than the goal. The old adage is said for a reason: it truly is the journey and the people you meet along the way. So be good to yourself and to others—you just never know how it's going to pan out.
This career ebbs and flows. How do you move differently during expansion seasons versus contraction seasons?
In expansion, I try to remember Rule No. 1: Do not believe your own hype. That's the real discipline of a good season—staying open, curious, not letting momentum calcify into ego. The work benefits from being a little afraid of it, in my opinion.
In contraction, I look at how I can be of service—how to be useful. What needs attention? I find creativity in non-industry-related things: I cook. I garden. I learn things that have nothing to do with the business.
There's an instinct to hustle harder when things slow down—to escape the silence through relentless activity—and I've learned that instinct, for me, is almost always wrong. Contraction seasons are for interiority. The exterior will eventually match that work.
The actors who last aren't the ones who perform resilience. They're the ones who actually have a life worth returning to between jobs.
Click image to expand
Dress: Ana Radu
Sunglasses: Bottega Veneta
Shoes: Prada
Did you train? Any Vancouver classes, coaches, or spaces you'd recommend?
I came up in the industry young, so a lot of my training happened on set. You learn fast in that environment, but you can also develop habits that take years to unlearn. I was part of the now-infamous Lyric School for many years. I've audited or worked with many of the major teachers of that era: Larry Moss, Ivana Chubbuck, Susan Batson, and more recently, Warner Loughlin.
I'll be attending a Stephen Braun workshop next weekend, and I go to Railtown Studios for an ongoing class I can “work out” in. I've also sought out one-on-one coaching throughout my career. The actors I respect most never stop being students of the work.
For Vancouver specifically—the community here is genuinely generous if you seek it out. I’d point people toward finding a coach who will tell you the truth rather than one who just makes you feel good. Those aren't always the same person. And go to the theatre. Watch live performances. It will teach you things about presence that no on-camera class can.
How do you protect your mental health in the in-between? Waiting on greenlights, on holds, or that "any day now" silence.
I reclaimed the in-between times and stopped allowing them to be defined by the industry's timeline. The shift was about being intentional with that time so my life wasn't on pause until I got word. I continued working toward whatever I was building, and if the yes came, then great.
Practically, that looks like all the basics—cooking meals, getting out in nature, moving my body—and also having projects that belong entirely to me, that don’t need any outside approval to move forward. I think every actor needs something like that—something you're building that's solely yours, on your own terms.
Camera: Canon 1DX Mark iii
Lens: Canon 24-70mm Mark ii & Sigma 70-200mm
Tether Tools Cable into Capture One and a MacBook Pro for live view.
F-stop: 2.8 - 4.5
Shutter: 1-/160s to1/200 s
ISO: 160 -1250
You can follow Kandyse on instagram here
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