Recently we talked to Melyssa Ade, the actress who played Emma Simpson in "When Will This Cruel War Be Over?" Melyssa was born in Yellowknife, a town in the Northwest Territory in Canada. She moved to Toronto at a very young age and still lives there today. Melyssa has been acting professionally for about 13 years. She studied acting at Earl Haig, a performing arts high school in Toronto. While attending high school she became good friends with Amy Stewart who plays Lucinda Lawrence in the Dear America episode "A Line in the Sand." When she's not acting, Melyssa involves herself in a variety of activities. Whether it's reading, writing, painting, or playing guitar, Melyssa says, "I always seem to have a project I'm doing to pour my energy into." "When Will This Cruel War Be Over?" was filmed in Toronto at the Spadina house, a historical landmark that was donated to the City of Toronto in 1978. The house was built in 1866, just after the Civil War, and sits on almost 6 acres of land. The historical quality of the house helped set the tone and take the cast back to the time period. "The Spadina house is beautiful," Melyssa says, "we had to be very careful because the house was so old and all of the furnishings were original." This was the first time Melyssa had seen a film crew dust and polish a set so thoroughly! Melyssa was impressed with the authenticity of the entire set including the costumes. To remain genuine, she wore layers of clothes including corsets, hoop skirts and big, billowy dresses. She says, "It was impossible not to recreate the period when you're wearing these costumes." Melyssa loved wearing the outfits. "They were gorgeous, I felt like a Madame Alexander porcelain doll!" But wearing the ensemble wasn't as easy as one would think. Melyssa told us, "They were so heavy, and so big...it was a bit of a problem maneuvering around. I actually had to have crew members squish my skirt together just so I could get through doors!" The heat was another obstacle she had to overcome. The episode was filmed in August, which Melyssa describes as "the dead heat of Ontario summer." The heavy costumes were uncomfortable and to cool off Melyssa would have to remove the layers of her costume on her lunch break. That wasn't the only problem. She told us, "The big problem for me...was my hair! In the period, they all wore their hair in ringlets. ...I have fine, straight hair...and add humidity to that,...my hair just would not hold these ringlets, they were just going flat! We would do a take and the Director would call "Cut," and three hair women would come running at me with electrical curling irons, and umbrellas, and hairspray...just trying to keep those curls going!" (Don't worry, Melyssa, we all have bad hair days!) To prepare for the role of Emma Simpson, Melyssa did her homework. Besides going to the library for two weeks to bone-up on the Civil War and historical Virginia, she became friendly with a native Virginian to get a true sense of southern culture. "To maintain authenticity, I actually developed a relationship with a woman who works as an operator at telephone assistance in Virginia!" Judy, the telephone operator, helped Melyssa with her accent and told her about life in Virginia. "We would have half-hour phone conversations everyday. She would tell me about the weather, her children, who's getting married, and who's doing whatever!" Although a southern accent wasn't easy to develop, Melyssa admits that it was "one of the most fun parts of playing Emma." For the entire duration of the shoot, which lasted almost two weeks, Melyssa was in character on and off the set! In her southern accent she told us, "I wandered around everywhere talking in my Virginian southern accent...All my family and friends must have thought I was out of my tree!" Her persistence paid off and she truly picked up the accent. Extras and crewmembers would constantly ask if she was really from Virginia. "I couldn't tell you how many times someone would ask where I was from!" When asked why she did this, she explains, "The way I work as an actor is I become immersed in the character, and I don't want to lose it." For her final bit of preparation, Melyssa read the book Jane Eyre. In "When Will This Cruel War Be Over?," this book has a great impact on Emma. It was a gift from her mother, who read the book when she was Emma's age. Melyssa had never read the book before, but now she's thankful she did. She says Jane Eyre is a "wonderful book, I was really taken by it." Melyssa points out that there are many parallels between Jane Eyre and Emma's life. Both girls are suffering injustices and both grow from, as Melyssa says, "sweet girls to wiser young women." "I can very easily see how Emma would be very swept away by it." Melyssa enjoyed playing the role of Emma. She says, "Emma had important things that she had to learn to become the young woman we love by the end of the story." Melyssa took pleasure in growing with Emma and respects Emma's "compassion, wisdom, and sense of responsibility." She says, "I really enjoyed giving life to Emma and following her story...All in all, I had a wonderful experience on the shoot!"