Tonya Williams is one busy lady. The decades-long star on the Young and the Restless is now an inspiration and advisor to emerging filmmakers through her brainchild, the annual ReelWorld Film Festival based in Toronto. With a lifelong passion for creating and promoting diversity in the landscape of the film industry, she’s been instrumental in the careers of Canadian up-and-comers like Richie Mehta, whose film Siddharth is in TIFF this year. She graces TIFF screens herself as well, as a firm but caring social worker in Peter Stebbing’s Empire of Dirt. With her passion and determination always firmly set on the future, she sat down with us during TIFF, to talk about her career and what it takes to make the leap between Canadian and the US film industry.