Tatiana Maslany has career breakout with Orphan Black

The plum role Tatiana Maslany landed on the Canadian-American science fiction TV series Orphan Black has catapulted the Regina-born actresss career to a new level.

Maslany plays a street-smart British orphan named Sarah Manning who realizes she has numerous identical versions of herselfsubjects of a top-secret, illegal medical experiment in theseries shown on BBC America andon Space in Canada.She also plays her many clones each a different character with unique patterns of speech and movement.

"Its such a high concept show and the gimmick of it could go so wrong, but the writing is such that it holds it up. I feel like Im so lucky to be bolstered by the incredible supporting cast on the show," Maslany said in an interview withCBCs Q cultural affairs show.

She says its been a huge personal challenge and an acting challenge to take on so many different characters. But her accomplishment in Orphan Black has caught the eyes of her peers and the critics, as well as fans who write to her from all over the world.

Maslany was thesurprise winner of the trophy for best actress in a dramaat the Critic's Choice Awards earlier this month, beating out the likes of Claire Danes, Vera Farmiga, Julianna Margulies, Elisabeth Moss and Keri Russell. Maslany says she was shaking as she accepted the award.

"It was such a surreal moment. Just being in the room with these actors," she said.

Maslany has starred in Canadian movies such as Grown Up Movie Star andPicture Day, current screening in cinemas and shes had roles in TV series such as Heartland and Being Erica. But Orphan Black feels different, she said.

"Taking the job and stepping into this character and these characters, felt like a shift. Just getting that part felt like a change, because the characters a lot more grown up than anyone Ive been lucky enough to play in the past I always get cast as a 12-year-old," she told Q.

Maslany talks about her coming role in Jason Priestley-directed filmCas & Dylan, opposite Richard Dreyfuss and how growing up in Regina helped fire her imagination as an actress.