Nicole-Sylvie Lagarde

Though Canadian actress and dancer Nico Lagarde enjoyed a long career on stage, her film and television appearances were largely relegated to minor roles until 2013, when she starred in two Canadian feature films: "Diego Star" and "Ressac," which emphasized her skill at dramatic roles. Like many working performers, Lagarde divided her time between actual performances and work that orbited the entertainment world, including production and assistant jobs for various Canadian screen projects. After enjoying critical acclaim for her one-woman turn in the play "Traffik Femme," Lagarde's film career took off with a supporting role in "Diego Star" and a major starring role in the Quebecois drama "Ressac." Lagarde's performance in the latter project served as notice of her emergence as a talent to watch on the Canadian film circuit. Trained as a dancer at the Ecole Superieure de Danse du Quebec, Nico Lagarde performed professionally on the Canadian and international theater scene for many years before adding stage and screen acting to her busy c.v. For much of the 1990s and 2000s, she worked in a variety of capacities: she served as personal assistant and production secretary on numerous film and television projects filmed in Canada, including "The Last Casino" (The Movie Network 2004) while also appearing in minor roles in the disco-era drama "Funkytown" (2011) and the Oscar-nominated "Monsieur Lazhar" (2011). From 2010 to 2012, she also starred in the intense one-woman stage play "Traffik Femme," about the worldwide human trafficking industry, for Montreal's Le Trunk Collectif. In 2013, she was featured in more prominent roles in two Canadian dramas: "Diego Star," about a ship mechanic from the Ivory Coast who is stranded in a small Quebecois village, and "Ressac," which cast Lagarde as a wife and mother who is forced to support her daughter at a local fishery after the apparent death of her estranged husband.