Sara Canning

Biography:

Canning was born in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, to Wayne and Daphne Canning. She spent her early childhood in Brown’s Arm, Newfoundland, before moving at age eleven to Sherwood Park near Edmonton, Alberta. As a child and early teenager, she competed in figure skating and later developed an interest in theatre while attending F.R. Haythorne Junior High. During her time at Bev Facey Community High School, she appeared in several stage productions and also performed at Festival Place in her hometown.

At 18, Canning made her professional stage debut in George Orwell’s 1984 at Edmonton’s Citadel Theatre. She initially enrolled in general arts studies at the University of Alberta and considered a career in journalism, but her passion for acting led her to leave university at 19 and relocate to Vancouver. She completed a one-year screen acting program at Vancouver Film School in 2007.

After securing representation, Canning began working in television series and made-for-TV films produced in Vancouver, supporting herself with restaurant work between acting jobs. Her first screen role came in 2008 when she portrayed Nicky Hilton in Paparazzi Princess: The Paris Hilton Story. In 2009, she guest appeared on Smallville and Kyle XY and starred in the television film Taken in Broad Daylight, based on real events, playing Anne Sluti, a teenager abducted by a disturbed criminal.

That same year, Canning filmed a pilot episode for The Vampire Diaries and starred in the feature film Black Field, a 19th-century gothic drama directed by Danishka Esterhazy. Shot near Tyndall, Manitoba, the film featured her as Maggie McGregor, the elder of two British sisters struggling to survive on the Canadian Prairies, and premiered at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 2009. Shortly after completing the film, The Vampire Diaries was picked up as a series.

Canning appeared on The Vampire Diaries as Jenna Sommers, the aunt and guardian of Elena Gilbert and her brother Jeremy. Despite being close in age to cast members playing high school students, makeup, wardrobe, and accent adjustments helped her appear older for the role. Her character’s romantic storyline involved Alaric, portrayed by Matthew Davis. She remained on the series through the second season until her character’s death in the episode “The Sun Also Rises.”

Beyond acting, Canning has expressed interest in writing and directing. By 2010, she was co-writing a Western-era love story. In 2011, she worked on the short film noir Corvus and filmed the Lifetime movie Hunt for the I-5 Killer in Vancouver. Later that year, she appeared in the Hallmark Western Hannah’s Law, filmed in Calgary.

In 2012, Canning starred in I Think I Do, playing an event planner who runs a business with her two sisters; the romantic comedy aired in 2013. She also filmed the independent romantic comedy The Right Kind of Wrong in Banff alongside Ryan Kwanten and Catherine O’Hara. From 2012 to 2013, she starred in Primeval: New World, a Canadian spin-off of the British sci-fi series, portraying predator control specialist Dylan Weir. During this period, she also appeared in the dark romantic comedy I Put a Hit on You and later joined the cast of the psychological drama Eadweard, playing the wife of photographer Eadweard Muybridge.

Canning took on the role of general surgeon Mel Conner in the medical drama Remedy, which was filmed in Toronto. The series earned a second season, and her performance received both the 2014 UBCP/ACTRA award and the 2015 Leo Award for Best Lead Performance.

Her later work includes a supporting role in War for the Planet of the Apes (2017), appearances in On the Farm and Hello Destroyer, and a role in the Netflix series A Series of Unfortunate Events. She also starred as a strict boarding school headmistress in the dystopian thriller Level 16 and reunited again with Danishka Esterhazy for The Banana Splits Movie, filmed in South Africa.

In 2020, Canning received a UBCP/ACTRA nomination for Best Female Lead for her work in the web series Hospital Show. She later starred in the 2021 film Superhost, noting that filming the YouTube-style vlogging scenes was particularly challenging.

Canning relocated to Atlanta, Georgia, while filming The Vampire Diaries and later remarked that the Southern U.S. culture felt very different from western Canada, though it eventually became like a second home. She lived there for two years before returning to Vancouver after completing the series.