Local teen stars in Robson Arms

By Dan Hilborn
Published June 15, 205


A Grade 8 honour student and all-star hockey player from Burnaby Mountain secondary has landed a recurring role in an award-winning late-night drama series that debuts this Friday night.

Justine Wong, 13, plays Ruby Tan, the youngest daughter of the blended Italian-Chinese family that runs the corner store in Robson Arms, a series that revolves around the lives and happenings in a quirky West End apartment building.

While Robson Arms delves into some very adult situations - sex, infidelity, pot smoking and shoplifting are just some of the topics covered in the first 13 episodes - this young teenager takes it all in stride.

When asked what's the best part of being a young actress in a new TV show, Wong barely hesitates before answering: "We get pampered and we get make-up, and we get our hair done and we get wardrobe."

In this case, "we" includes some of the top actors currently working in Canada. John Cassini, of NYPD Blue, plays the handsome but slightly creepy building superintendent, the only character to appear in each of the first 13 episodes of the show. William B. Davis, the towering Smoking Man of X-Files fame, costars with Margot Kidder, his dissatisfied wife who has a bad habit of shoplifting from the Tans' store.

And Ruby takes the spotlight in the very first episode, when she befriends a new neighbour, Henry, the 10-year-old son of a single mother whose frustrations and anxieties prompt Cassini's character to declare that "all she needs is a good poke."

Maybe the kids don't exactly understand the advice, but they do recognize it has something to do with a man. And so, armed only with binoculars and their imaginations, the two kids conspire to hook up Henry's mom with the athletic widower who lives upstairs.

Aline Goguen-Wong, Justine's mother and constant companion on set, admits she hasn't seen the final version of the pilot episode, titled Dancing the Horizontal Mambo, but said her daughter takes the adult situations in stride.

"Well, Justine is 13 years old, and there's lots of stuff that goes on today," Goguen-Wong said. "They know more than we did when we were 13. And I also think the plot was tastefully done."

In fact, acting is only a small part of Justine's active life. And it is her successes in school and on the sports field that have given her the supports she needs to become so involved in such a busy industry.

"It's a very hectic world," Justine's mother said. "We want our children to be involved in the community and school, because that's so important, and I believe Justine is a capable girl.

"She gets high marks, she balances everything else and I think playing sports keep her grounded. I don't know if she'll become a star, but that's not the basis for doing this. It's for her education."

And Justine agrees. "School is the most important thing," she said. "I study a lot, but it comes easy to me.

"It's fun," she says, with typical teenage aplomb.

And if early indicators are a sign, Robson Arms has the potential to become B.C.'s most talked-about TV show since The Beachcombers went off the air so many years ago.

Even before it hit the airwaves, the show earned two 2005 Leo Awards, handed out in late May for the best in B.C.'s film and television industry. Cassini won for best male actor and Jesse McKeown won for best screenwriting, thanks to his gritty but honest portrayal of the ever-rotating cast of characters.

Some of the most hilarious scenes in the first season revolve around the Tans' Cantonese-speaking grandmother, whose first words in English are "shoplifter" and "heartless." Wong even has a few lines in Cantonese.

Robson Arms begins its 13-episode run on CTV at 10:30 p.m. Friday.