More Canadians than ever seem to be landing in Tinseltown-

By MARGARET FELDSTEIN

oll over, Dan Aykroyd, and tell Jim Carrey the news: Hollywood is being flooded with a new generation of rising Canadian stars. Their faces are beamed into living rooms and onto movie screens across the U.S., where their talents are being richly rewarded.

Of course, Canadian talent in Hollywood is nothing new. From Mary Pickford (Toronto) to William Shatner (Montreal) to James Cameron (Kapuskasing, Ont.)--not to mention Baywatch babe Pamela Lee Anderson and NBC's Friends' friend Matthew Perry--shadows from the True North have long cast a spell in Tinseltown. But perhaps never before has the talent pool been as deep as it is right now or as highly visible. An estimated 20% of the Hollywood industry is made up of Canadian-born actors, directors, crew members and postproduction workers.

Scan the prime-time lineup, from NBC's perennially successful ER to ABC's newborn and ill-named Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. Looking for heartthrobs? WB's Dawson's Creek and Fox's Significant Others each offer a tender, appropriately scruffy young Canadian star (Joshua Jackson and Scott Bairstow, respectively), while CBS's tough-talking Brooklyn South sports the northern accents of Gary Basaraba and Klea Scott. Ex-Kids in the Hall member Dave Foley has a home on NBC's NewsRadio alongside fellow Ontarian Phil Hartman. Edmonton-born Jill Hennessy has parlayed a stint on Law & Order into a burgeoning film career that embraces big studio productions like Most Wanted, in which she will star opposite Keenen Ivory Wayans in the fall.

Why so many, and why now? Two words: opportunity and money. Canada's burgeoning entertainment industry is offering more people more jobs at home than ever, but it cannot match the volume of work and the salaries of U.S. productions. And there is the indefinable lure of working at the core of a global entertainment industry.

"Growing up in Canada, all the television you're watching is American," says writer Tim Long, 27. "So you get into this mind-set that Canada's a great place to hone your skill, but this is the big leagues." Born in Exeter, Ont., and graduated from the University of Toronto, he headed west to write for Fox's The Simpsons. With a U.S. viewing population 15 times as large as Canada's English-speaking audience, he notes, "the American market is so huge that even something quirky and small can find an audience."

William B. Davis, known to X-philes as Cancer Man on the cultish Fox Network hit, thinks that Canadians have changed the scope of their goals over the past 10 years. "The ambition before was that you would be able to keep working as an actor and make something of a living at it," he says. "Now they look at Jason Priestley and others and say, 'Ha! There's a chance to get really rich.'"

Gloria Reuben, 34, knows what he means. She spent years doing episodic television and movies of the week at home, but the experience did the Toronto actress little good once she hit the U.S. "Since most things that get shot in Canada only air there, you kind of have to start over," she explains. Vancouver-born Gil Bellows, male star of the Fox hit Ally McBeal, started as a film actor in Canada but grew frustrated. "You do something in America, and you know people are going to see it," he asserts. "You know you have a chance to let your career opportunities grow for you."

Scott Bairstow, 27, was born in Winnipeg but left home for Hollywood at the age of 17. He regards the move as a natural progression for the preternaturally ambitious. "If you want to go from making good money to insane money, if you want to be able to work with great directors, you just have to go down south," he says.

Most of the Canadians who have hit the Los Angeles limelight speak fondly of their careers back home. But not all of them. Vancouver-born Gary Basaraba, a lead on Brooklyn South, calls Canada's acting network "a very closed shop." Basaraba worked in a steel mill before enrolling in Yale's drama school. He then applied to work at Canada's Stratford Theater, but was offered only an apprenticeship. Instead, he took a full-fledged role at a Minnesota Shakespeare company. "In Canada it doesn't matter what you've got," he says. "It matters who you know, who knows you, and if you've paid your dues."

Ally McBeal's Bellows blames some of that problem on the stronger role of government in Canada. "This is a matter of bureaucracy getting in the way of art and mixing with commerce," he says. Bellows believes that the only way to create a stronger Canadian industry is to funnel a larger percentage of profits from U.S. productions back into Canadian productions.

In fact, one explanation for the new migration is Ottawa's system of tax credits for U.S. co-productions that employ mandated levels of Canadian talent. These rules have encouraged Canadian actors to move to Los Angeles, where they are hired by L.A.-based casting agents for what are purportedly Canadian films shot in Canada. One rule is that the second-highest-paid actor on a co-production must be Canadian, and the result is that established Canadian actors are regularly tapped to appear in cable-TV fare like The Outer Limits, a Showtime series co-produced by Canada's Atlantis Communications. Such work provides a bonus opportunity for established actors like Basaraba and Natasha Henstridge, the Newfoundland native whose steamy appearance in the 1995 sci-fi thriller Species has led to a steady stream of film work, including, naturally, Species II, which will open on April 10.

Companies like Atlantis are increasingly setting up offices in Los Angeles, which is further helping to "fertilize the territory" for Canadian talent, according to Peter Sussman, president of Atlantis' California operation. Sussman happily takes credit for speeding along the Canadian exodus. "Today a Canadian writer might come a year or two before he is pushed to come. We're pulling them," he says.

But Canadian actors who never leave home "are getting a lot of exposure anyway," says Emmy Award-winning director and B.C. native Daryl Duke. Toronto and Vancouver have become magnets for American productions, partly on account of the cheap Canadian dollar. A job in one of those productions can make the idea of a trip south seem less daunting for local actors. Film and television production in B.C. has increased fivefold in the past 10 years; it grew 14% from 1996 to 1997 alone. Total Canadian revenues from the U.S. film and television industry topped $608 million in 1997. The benefit for Canada's onscreen talent, says Maughan Marian of Vancouver's Kirk Talent agencies, is that "if you have a U.S. production on your resume, that opens doors later."

For Vancouver-born Nicholas Lea, a three-year gig as a regular on The Commish, filmed in his hometown, led to a regular role as Alex Krycek on The X-Files. Although he considers Vancouver his permanent home, he has moved south to consider other scripts. "Vancouver has turned into a training ground where you can get your feet wet in a very big way," Lea says. "Now people in L.A. know who I am."

But Hollywood is not the be-all and end-all of everything or everyone. Despite the importance of its pull, more and more young people nowadays feel that a decision to stay in Canada is a matter of choice rather than a necessity. Directors Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg, in particular, are recognized for their consistent decision to choose thoroughly Canadian casts and settings. The international success of Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter has shown that Canadian films can stand without the support of U.S. star power. In fact, The Sweet Hereafter has turned out to be a starmaker of its own in the case of Toronto's Sarah Polley, 19, who has made it clear that she intends to be a successful stay-at-home.

"If you want to be an actor and really work, stay here," she advises. "If you want to be famous, go to the States." Just look at those who do.

--With reporting by Dan Cray/Los Angeles, Moira Daly/Toronto and Maggie Sieger/Vancouver

--With Reporting by Dan Cray /Los Angeles, Moira Daly /Toronto and Maggie Sieger /Vancouver