A caregiver at heart, Lucia Walters is no stranger to tackling heavy issues.
The former Squamish resident was trained as a nurse and worked at the only drug rehab clinic for pregnant women in the country at the 小蓝视频 Women's Hospital before she stepped in front of a camera.
As an actor Walters hasn't strayed from picking out meaningful and sometimes gritty projects. Recently she played an ex-drug addicted mom and a social worker and now she's penned her own feature film script entitled Hope Square.
"I want to keep doing a huge variety of roles that obviously are not degrading to women, that pass on positive messages that maybe just takes someone away out of their present state for two hours or an hour and make them feel better. That's my goal, I still like the nursing. I just want to make people feel better."
Walters spends most of her time working in Vancouver on the CW network show Life Unexpected where she plays a social worker for a young foster girl named Lux who recently found her birth parents.
"[Lux is] trying to emancipate herself as a minor and her parents are trying to get into her life but they're very screwed up people so every week is a screwed up week and every week is emotional."
Life Unexpected is more down to earth and less smutty than other CW shows like Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl and 90210, according to Walters mostly because it is written and produced by an amazing woman, Liz Tigelaar.
"She does everything. She's an amazing woman who just writes deep grounded stuff and I can't wait to see what else she's got going."
Walters said Tigelaar writes Life Unexpected from a place of great accuracy and truth because Tigelaar herself was adopted.
"She wasn't in foster care but she definitely has been around enough to have the research and have it accurate and not just assumptions."
Walters draws inspiration for her character from her personal experience with social workers while she was a nurse.
"I dealt with a lot of social workers, a lot of child issues and even within the hospital there's always social work issues for people who have economical issues," said the former Howe Sound Secondary student.
"It played in very beautifully."
Other than getting used to the slew of legal- social worker jargon Walters said the subject of the show gets tough at times.
"Emotionally I love going to those places, it's fun. It's a nice high. That's my high. But it's hard because some of the scenes are really heart wrenching."
There's no type casting this exotic looking actress who was born to a Dutch mother and an Antiguan father in Alberta.
"The best part about not being a super star is not getting type cast so I've played everything from an ex-drug addict mother to a social worker to a fun girl."
Since her parents don't live in Squamish anymore, Walters said she usually just drives through town on her way to Whistler.
"But every now and again I stop to see friends but not many of them because most of everyone I grew up with moved away."
Since Walters moved to Vancouver in the 1990s she said she's noticed how much the Squamish she knew from high school has changed.
"Every year it keeps getting more stuff, more shopping more businesses, you know it's just different."
Walters, the daughter of the former minister at St. John the Devine Anglican Church, recalls a Squamish without a McDonald's.
"You know that area on the way to Garibaldi Highlands? It was just sort of an industrial area. I learned how to drive a stick shift back there. There was nothing there - except bears."
