Luvia Petersen

Luvia Petersen
PerformerRDM
{{{credit}}}
Portrays:	Kai
Date of Birth:	April 15, 1978
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month!
Age:	48
Nationality:	CAN
Related Media
		@ BW Media
Official Site (archived)
IMDb profile

Luvia Petersen is the Canadian actress who portrayed Kai in "The Plan." She was raised in Montreal, Quebec, before her family relocated first to Alberta and, in the late 1990s, to British Columbia, where she continues to live and work.

Career

Petersen completed the Vancouver Academy of Dramatic Arts (VADA) Dramatic Arts Program Diploma in 2003, having begun with a two-week introductory program before enrolling in the school's six-month full-time course. She subsequently continued advanced study under acting coach Warren Robertson, and remained affiliated with VADA through 2010, during which time she also taught and coached students there. Her additional training included programs at The Actor's Foundry, Ben Immanuel Scene Study, and AMAW with Anthony Meindl.

Having grown up playing competitive rugby and soccer at the provincial level, Petersen had intended a career in professional athletics and kinesiology. A combination of injuries and personal circumstances led her to redirect toward acting at around age 25. Her first professional role came in the Emmy-nominated Showtime drama The L Word (2004–2005), in which she appeared as Cowboy/Dax. She subsequently hosted and co-wrote the first season of the documentary series Hot Pink Shorts (2007).

Petersen's genre credits include the feature film The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008), in which she appeared as an O.R. Nurse, and the The CW drama Reaper (2009). Her subsequent television work includes Sanctuary (2010), Falling Skies (2013), Psych (2014), The 100 (2014), and Van Helsing (2021).

Her most substantial television role to date has been Jasmine Garza, a paramilitary fighter in the time-travel drama Continuum (Showcase/Syfy, 2012–2015), in which she appeared across 39 episodes. The performance earned her a 2014 Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Series, as well as a Leo Award nomination for Best Supporting Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series. Showrunner Simon Barry, who cast Petersen in the role, has spoken to the strength of her initial audition: "There's an immediate ownership of Garza that Luvia brought, and we all looked at each other and knew. We didn't even have to talk after her audition, we didn't have to make a sound, we just looked at each other."

From 2017 to 2018, Petersen played Val McGrath-Dufresne, the mayor of the fictional Alaskan town of Port Moore, in the supernatural horror series Ghost Wars (Syfy), earning a further Leo Award nomination for Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series.

Directing

Petersen has pursued a parallel career as a director. Her debut short film, Dog Bite (2017), was written by Ghost Wars writing team member Gemma Holdway and starred her Continuum colleague Jennifer Spence; the project earned Petersen a Leo Award nomination for Best Performance by a Female in a Short Drama. Her subsequent short, H.appiness, was produced through her women-led production company Download Joy Productions and received distribution on CraveTV in Canada and on the streaming service DUST internationally. Her Crazy8s short iDorothy (2021) was produced entirely within eight days and earned a Leo Award nomination for Best Performance by a Female in a Short Drama (shared with Carmen Moore).

In June 2022, Petersen was named the inaugural recipient of the Women In the Director's Chair (WIDC) Advantage Award for her debut feature project, Human Nature, a psychological cabin-in-the-woods thriller developed under the Download Joy Productions banner with producer Amanda Konkin and writer Huelah Lander. The film was also supported by Women in Film and Television (WIFTV) and nominated by WIDC for the 2022 Telefilm Canada Talent to Watch program; Variety reported that actor Aleks Paunovic was attached to star.

Personal life

Petersen is openly bisexual and married photographer Jessie Robertson in 2015; the couple has been together since 2010. She co-owns the Liquid Amber Tattoo & Art Collective, a Gastown-area studio in Vancouver that she founded with Justina Kervel in 2001. She also performs as synth player in the Vancouver indie band Hyaenas, whose debut EP Little Trophy was released in 2023.

References