While most Canadians know Carolyn MacKenzie as the co-host of Global's The Morning Show, the Toronto native admits she originally saw herself in an even more glamorous television role.
"I attempted acting for a bit," she tells HELLO! Canada. "I'd go on these cattle-call auditions and you'd get there and there'd be a hundred 'yous' – everyone's the same because you've all been called for the same part. I'd think, 'Oh gosh, what is this?'"
Carolyn's day job may be co-hosting The Morning Show, but for the last year her passion has been renovating her Toronto home with Mark Ruffell Design Build in the French farmhouse style. Here, she poses in her living room wearing a dress by Canadian designer Narces. Photo: © David Pike
Carolyn gave up the dream pretty quickly – "before I lost all my self-esteem" – and made use of her journalism degree, accepting an on-air reporting gig in Sydney, N.S. And she's been a staple in Canadian TV news ever since.
"Things did come full circle recently, though," she says "The TV show Family Law wanted me to read for them. I was so excited, asking, 'What character? Am I going to be a lawyer? What am I going to do?' I was so excited to go back to my roots! But they were like, 'No, can you play yourself, doing a scene from your own show?'"
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Carolyn took the "part," even if she was a little disappointed.
"I really wanted to be the one who runs into the courtroom with new evidence and throws it on the desk. But it was still kind of cool that those worlds were colliding."
As the 47-year-old host shows us around her recently renovated west end Toronto house, it's clear Carolyn has many passions off-screen as well, including interior design.
The light-filled kitchen is the house's focal point, featuring 100-year-old hand-hewn barn beams, 10-inch hardwood floor planks and a stone wall. "I did not leave that island the entire time the mason was working on the wall. It's my favourite feature," says Carolyn. Photo: © David Pike
"I had a vision," she says of the major overhaul. "I did preliminary sketches for the addition and builder Mark Ruffell made that vision a reality. He sent me to his suppliers and from there I picked every single detail."
And she did it all so she' d have a bigger, cozier place to spend time with her family.
"This is where we gather," she says, "and I want it to be where my kids bring their friends and hang out. I want that environment. I had it growing up and I want it for my kids."
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Here, Carolyn, her firefighter husband, Chris Stark, 51, their daughter, Katelyn, 14, and son, Matthew, 11, show off their "forever home" as Carolyn chats with us about her renovation inspiration, being a cool mom and her unbelievable meet-cute love story with Chris.
After years of being welcomed into the homes of her viewers, Carolyn is excited that this photoshoot gives fans a peek into where she is raising her family. Photo: © David Pike
Carolyn, your home is beautiful. How long have you been here?
We bought it in 2010 and I loved it the moment I walked in. I love homes with character. And I think old homes like this one, which was built in the 1930s, have character. They always say that you know when you walk into a home pretty quickly if you can live there, if you have a good feeling about it, and I did. Chris didn't. He said he couldn't see the furniture at that time. But I knew it was going to be our forever home, and now this reno just made it more practical for a growing family.
Is there a room in particular you love to be in?
I really wanted to make our dream kitchen. And I think we did it! Chris is a foodie - he's such a great cook. I'm decent enough. My mom's Maltese and I make a lot of Maltese dishes. But Chris is more adventurous.
"I take the connections I've made with viewers over the years very seriously," Carolyn says. Photo: © David Pike
The wooden beams and stone all really stand out in the kitchen.
I always knew the look I wanted, and that was French farmhouse, modern farmhouse. I love that style. And that stone wall is it to me. The ultimate compliment was when we had a gentleman in putting a runner on the staircase. He peeked around the corner and said, "Oh, my gosh, that reminds me of home," before adding, "I'm from Europe."
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As for the beams, they are at least 100 years old and come from a barn in Milton – they're hand-hewn, so cut with an axe by hand. To me, those beams tell a story and I'm a storyteller. I like a good story.
And you did all the decorating as well?
I love to do it. Love working with textiles and colour. I find design and décor should always be a mix of contemporary and traditional. The more you mix them, the more beautiful something can be.
It must have taken a lot of time to get everything right.
I love to thrift shop. That's where you're going to find treasures; for example, that's where I got my cookbook holder, the baking dish on the island, the vegetable holder and candlesticks, as well as a number of bowls. People always think they need to spend so much on new things, but they're missing the point of what character, a storied past and history provide.
Carolyn may not be the main cook in the house, but she has stocked her cupboards with some thrift store treasures. Photo: © David Pike
Do you have a similar sensibility when it comes to fashion?
What I love about fashion is the same as interior design. I love that you can mix and match and play depending on the season or how I'm feeling that day. It can be masculine, it can be feminine, it can be flirty, it can be all business and super serious. And that's what makes it so much fun.
It's so great seeing you all dressed up with your kids for the photoshoot. They certainly seem proud of their mom!
You know what, I think they are proud of me and proud of Chris. They know the impact he has on people's lives. And I think they see that I take the connections I've made with viewers over the years very seriously. They know the hours we devote to our jobs, but they also know we enjoy our jobs and we get a lot out of them and they make us who we are. And those things are so important to instil - that you've got to enjoy what you do.
"I am inspired by Kate's passion and determination. She's a go-getter," says the proud mom. "And I'm impressed by Matt's compassion and sensitivity to others." Photo: © David Pike
And they said they like coming down to the studio and meeting the celebrities you're interviewing.
Yes, they met Toronto Maple Leafs player Mitch Marner, which was very exciting. And Kate asked if she could FaceTime Austin Butler from Elvis after I interviewed him – to which I said, "Um, no!" We're getting into those teenage years now, and I feel like a couple of years ago I was a little bit cooler in Kate's eyes. I used to make her laugh a lot. But I have friends who have older kids and they say, "Don't worry, you'll be cool again. Just give her a few more years. She'll come back and it'll be good."
Kate, who is an aspiring writer and painter, sits and swings in her bedroom, while Matt's room is a shrine to his favourite sport. He says he appreciates the perks of his mom's job. Photos: © David Pike
Both of your children play hockey. Would you consider yourself a "hockey mom"?
Oh, yes! I get boisterous – but in a positive way. One time, we even played footage from Matt's playoff game on The Morning Show so that viewers could see me groaning and grunting and all the sounds that were coming out of me watching this entire game unfold.
Chris also seems pretty sporty. How did you meet?
I was actually his medical call! That's how we met. I was working out at my gym in the west end of Toronto and I passed out during a good old-fashioned step-aerobics class – I was probably wearing a very interesting workout outfit. [Laughs] There was very little ventilation in that room and I got light-headed. I hit the floor and did a face plant, hard. I don't remember any of that. But the next thing I know, they've taken me to an office and, when I come to, Chris is staring down at me. He was the first responder. I could see he was cute and I could feel my face swelling by the second and I was mortified. I was trying to answer his questions, but also refusing to look at him, although I could tell he had a little grin on his face. He loaded me into the ambulance and we thought that was it.
Right, it's not like you'd exchange numbers in the ambulance.
No, you would think we'd never see each other again. But funny enough, three months later, mutual friends of ours set us up on a blind date.
The couple share a laugh in front of some of their favourite mementoes, including paintings, photos and a firefighter medallion. Photo: © David Pike
No way!
Yeah, we're about an hour into our evening at Crocodile Rock in downtown Toronto and I start talking about the scar tissue on my face. He asked where I got the scar from and I told him I passed out at my gym a few months back. And in that moment, he stopped, took a step back and looked at me, kind of tilting his head like a puppy dog. And he's like, "Oh, my gosh, you're the girl. I was the firefighter who responded to that call."
And then I took a step back and looked at him, and we were just realizing how unexpected this was. We were just a little bit taken by that. We were already getting along to begin with, but then this kind of put it over the top. The next date we didn't go out with our friends, it was just the two of us. And when he came to my mom's house to pick me up, he had printed off the report from my medical call and got his entire crew to sign it. He gave it to my mom, saying, "I think she's in good hands." Now my mom was taken, too. She said, "OK, this is it. You guys will be getting married." And we did! It'll be 20 years next September.
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You were in your 20s at the time, so Chris has really been with you throughout your whole career trajectory.
That's right – I met him when I just graduated from journalism school. He was with me that whole year of hitting the pavement, auditioning for anything and everything. And then he saw me, with teary eyes and both of us emotional, as I accepted that job in Nova Scotia. Here we are, very much in love, and I went all the way across the country. But he would come and visit, and when he did I would take him out as my cameraman. He's been there from the beginning, watching it all unfold.
Eventually you made it back to Toronto and worked your way up to hosting The Morning Show, which brought another man into your life. How did you and your co-host, Jeff McArthur, develop your on-air chemistry?
You know, it's a process – it's like a science experiment. You never know what's going to work and what's going to blow up in your face. Fortunately, I think for Jeff and me, we are different enough in some ways and similar in others that we complement each other. I mean, there are days where we go, "Well, I think we can do better tomorrow." And then there are other days where we feel like we were so on point and connecting and moving and grooving that it's absolutely delicious and wonderful. It's a dance – some days it's not going that well and some days you're Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Do you miss being out in the field doing hard news, or is your role now a better fit?
I am more myself as a lifestyle morning most. I can be more my authentic self – I can be quirky Carolyn. For the 18 years or so that I was in news, it was difficult. We all know what news is – it's often hard to hear and not happy. My friends and family would say, "What people see isn't the real you." But now, for the first time, I actually feel like the viewer sees the real Carolyn and I can connect more because I am open and honest.
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Is being a morning show host anything like what we see on the TV series with Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon?
I absolutely love that show. I even got to cover the New York City premiere and I brought Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston a bunch of our The Morning Show mugs and some Canadian products. I gave Jennifer Aniston ketchup chips!
Any idea what she thought of them?
She didn't eat them in front of me – do you believe that! As for the show itself, it depicts more of an American network news show, which is very different from what we do. Here, it's never been that sinister and cutthroat. But I can relate to some things, in the sense of earlier in my career always looking over your shoulder and seeing the next person, the next journalist, rising quickly through the ranks.
Photo: © David Pike
Do you still have those worries?
Someone recently asked me if I ever worry about someone else, someone younger, someone more talented, coming up, and it was Chris who remarked how my mindset has changed over the years. How, in my late 20s and 30s, I would be on vacation and I would talk about who was filling in for me, how well they were doing, if breaking news was happening and what was going on? But now, I don't have the time or the energy. I don't care anymore. Time is wasted stressing and worrying. You just have to work hard, do your best, be good team player and love what you do. [Smiles]