Young actor Rian Michelsen is far away from his Bermuda birthplace — but friends and family here can still see him regularly enough on TV.Just 14 years old, Rian juggles a screen career alongside high school at Toronto’s Etobicoke School of the Arts.It’s a far cry from his role as an elf in the Warwick Academy Christmas play: nowadays the dual-citizen teen appears on Canadian TV shows like ‘Flashpoint’, ‘The Firm’, ‘Alphas’, ‘Copper’ and ‘Murdoch Mysteries’.“It’s so much fun; I love every bit of it,” Rian said of stepping in front of the cameras. “It’s everything I always wanted.”Two years ago, proud parents Brett and Tanis and sisters Jade and Lyla moved to Canada, in part to help Rian’s career. The move paid off.He’s now in grade nine at ESA, studying musical theatre along with traditional school subjects — and he’s on the airwaves.Rian appeared last Sunday on ‘Copper’, aired by BBC America, and he has a role in the last episode of the new season of ‘Murdoch Mysteries’He explained: “Some of the roles are as actors, which is a couple of lines. Others are principals, where you get ten to 20 lines. That’s as far as I have gone right now.”Other appearances have been ads for Honda and Walmart, and his skills range from dance to drumming, as well as various accents on demand.As a young actor, Rian currently gets the role of a flashback character.“I get a lot of those. In the show ‘Alphas’, I was the flashback of someone’s boyfriend,” he said.His latest gig was for the Discovery Channel docudrama ‘Alien Mysteries’.“That was this week. It’s a show where people talk about different alien encounters. For this one, someone’s been abducted, so I am the flashback of what happened that day.”Courtesy of his agent, Rian takes “whatever comes my way”, he said.“The agency finds out what roles are posted on the web, they submit for it, and if the casting director want to see you, they call or e-mail. Most of the time I say yes, because I don’t want to shoot down any opportunities.”Asked which had been his favourite, he said: “Actually, I have no idea. I just love what I do.”Added Rian: “I would really like to be on the show ‘Degrassi’, which is a show about what happens in high school. I just had an audition for it the other day. It’s a show where a lot of big actors in Canada get their start.”Also a stage actor, Rian cut his teeth in his native Bermuda — he performed in productions like the Bermuda Musical and Dramatic Society’s ‘Robin Hood’ in 2009, and he played the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Oliver!’.Twelve years old when he left Sandys and headed north with his family, Rian said he missed Bermuda, and the friends and relatives here who have supported him.Aside from training at the School of Performing Arts in Bermuda, the Island also provided an early TV role as a Learnalot.“I love both theatre and TV, for different ways,” he said. “Theatre’s what I did first. I love singing, and theatre can be really over the top. Film is the opposite. With all the cameras, it picks up everything you do. They’re both great.”Now just one year into his career as an agent-represented actor, Ryan counts himself very lucky to have found roles as quickly as he did — but it took time as well.“Don’t give up,” he said, when asked what advice he could pass on. “I actually auditioned for an agency before the one I’m in now. I went twice and I didn’t get it. I felt really shot down by that. But I didn’t ever want to give up.”