Rachel Boyd reflects on her humble beginnings in Newmarket aspiring to become a famous Hollywood actress on the big screen.
She received her big break starring in Boot Camp, a newly released film on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and on-demand.
“I started doing auditions when I was younger,” said Boyd from her new home in Los Angeles. “My mother would drive me into Toronto. She would drive for hours roundtrip for five-minute auditions where we would never hear, back but that is how the industry is. It was a big, long process of constantly believing in myself and my family believing and supporting me in those ways that eventually I had more yeses. Then you get bigger auditions from that and it snowballs.”
Boyd stars as Willow in Boot Camp, a coming-of-age romantic comedy that tells the story of body empowerment. Willow acts as the antagonist of the film possessing toxic traits, and telling petty lies to the main character, Whitney Carmichael.
“It was really fun shooting the movie,” said Boyd. “I have never had so much fun on a movie set before. There’s a food fight scene, we do a lot of scenes on treetop trekking, there’s a bull riding scene and dancing. It was so much fun, totally a whirlwind and reminiscent of what it felt like being at an overnight camp when I was younger.”
Boot Camp follows the life of Whitney Carmichael, an unathletic and out-of-shape teenager who signs up for an intense summer boot camp to reinvent herself. She, however, falls in love with her personal trainer in a forbidden romance.
“I play her childhood friend turned enemy and high school bully who plays a part in embarrassing her at a prom,” said Boyd. “The two girls find themselves reluctantly at a boot camp together where she begins to fall for her off-limits personal trainer.”
The movie is based on Gina Musa's popular Wattpad web novel, with more than 27 million reads. It was filmed in Vancouver, B.C., directed by Mackenzie Munro, and produced by Junction Hammer Productions, Channel Zero, Great Pacific Media, December Films, and Wattpad Webtoon Studios. Boyd provides a glimpse into the personality of her character detailing how and why she becomes an adversary in the film and growth throughout.
“Willow is quite cunning and mean at the beginning, but as the saying goes, hurt people hurt people,” said Boyd. “They discover in the movie that she is dealing with a lot of stuff going on in her own home life. I think it was a good opportunity to be able to explore playing a mean girl or bully trope that gets to go through a transition of learning how to look inward and heal the parts of her that make her mean and that are hurting and look to find her power and strength that don’t need to involve tearing people down.”
Despite living on the West Coast now, Boyd finds similarities to her hometown.
"This area where I'm living now reminds me of Newmarket," said Boyd. "There's this one strip, kind of like Main Street where there is a bunch of little restaurants and everyone likes to hangout there on the weekend or for dinner or happy hours and there's a little water pond like Fairy Lake," said Boyd.
She enjoys playing a character with a lot of dimensions. She previously starred in films, He’s Not Worth Dying For, Break Any Spell, Grand Army, and the Bold Type.
“I feel lucky to have done a lot of films with different characters that are well-rounded and special to me,” said Boyd. “I would say that is my favourite part of the acting process, going deep in on my characters and their backstories and what makes them the way they are and behave the way they are so each character is different and nuanced to me and interesting to me.”
