The five roles — Are You Afraid of the Dark?, 24, Love Actually, The Girl Next Door, and Happy Endings — that helped Elisha Cuthbert prepare to star on NBC’s One Big Happy.

CINAR

CINAR

Cuthbert made her screen debut as an extra in a 1996 episode of this spooky Canadian kids show before joining the cast full time — as a member of The Midnight Society — in 1999. The show, which aired in the U.S. on Nickelodeon, has become, in retrospect, a who's who of emerging Canadian actors that included Ryan Gosling, Neve Campbell, Hayden Christensen, and Emily VanCamp.

"Every actor trickled through there because they needed so many people to fill in those stories," Cuthbert told BuzzFeed News at The Langham Hotel in Pasadena, California, during the Television Critics Association winter press tour. "It's just crazy how many actors were on that show. I had done it before I became a campfire kid — and I'm going to try and talk about this with a serious face — I was in one of the stories when I was younger, so later on, to come back and become a campfire kid was like a dream."

Cuthbert was cast as a member of The Midnight Society after the first generation of actors aged out of the roles. "The only way you could get onto the show was to make it into the story, so I never thought in my wildest dreams that they would become too old and then move off and do other, amazing things and they'd have spots to fill," she said. "All of a sudden, this audition came my way, and it was awesome. When I first put my hand in the bag of glitter, oh man."

While Cuthbert's episodes aired over the course of two years, it took much less time to actually film them. "It was two weeks, boom, done," she said. "It was like Oprah for her magazine covers. She shoots every cover in a day and she's good for the year. That's how it is. One big shoot and we were gone. It lended itself to us being available for other things, which was so great."

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