Music: {allcanada} Cuthbert racks up air miles

Monday, August 2, 2010

{allcanada} Cuthbert racks up air miles

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Flying back and forth between Los Angeles and Toronto regularly would be torture for someone who's afraid of flying.

Luckily, Canadian actress Elisha Cuthbert - who is dating Toronto Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf - long ago got over her flying jitters.

"I just kept doing it," said Cuthbert, 27. "I just figured if that's the way I'm going to go, I'd better just deal with it.

"You know what it was? It was a short stint of fear that my mother actually had instilled in me when I was younger working on Popular Mechanics for Kids, because she had to travel with me and she was deathly afraid of flying. It kind of rubbed off on me.

"But once I started travelling alone, there's no one really to cling to, and I realized, 'What a minute, I'm not really afraid.' So it was a short-lived fear, but it definitely was there at one point. I got over it."

In any event, Cuthbert is very happy that Phaneuf has been named Leafs captain.

"Yeah, very proud," Cuthbert said. "But he's the right man for the job."

Cuthbert, who most recently has been best known for playing perpetual hostage Kim Bauer - Jack Bauer's daughter - on 24, is starring in a new ABC sitcom called Happy Endings. It tentatively is slated as a mid-season replacement, so that means it should show up on the air sometime early in 2011.

Cuthbert's travel schedule got a frequent-flyer boost earlier this year when Phaneuf got traded from the Calgary Flames to the Leafs. But she said the longer flights haven't really complicated her life.

"It's fine, actually," Cuthbert said. "I mean, I work here (in Los Angeles), and I go back and forth between here and Toronto. I couldn't ask for a better place in Canada. "It's a longer flight, but you know what, the city is so great, and I've worked there, spent a lot of time there when I was younger. So to kind of go back and re-discover the city has been great. And everyone has been so kind to me whenever I've been there thus far, so we're really having a good time."

As for Happy Endings, Cuthbert said she definitely had "put it out there" that she was ready to do a comedy.

"Coming from 24, it was a much-needed change that just felt right," Cuthbert said. Nonetheless, she said she would be more than willing to appear in the upcoming 24 movie.

"Absolutely, I would be lying if I said otherwise," Cuthbert said.

"They actually haven't called me on it. The thing is, I have a lot of trust in Kiefer (Sutherland) and the producers and Howard Gordon, all these guys, that if they need me and I'm going to be a good fit - and not just put me in there because they have to - I trust their judgment and will be there on the day that they need me. Unless I'm shooting Happy Endings, of course."

In other words, the no-longer-afraid Elisha Cuthbert is willing to fly anywhere she's needed.