Caity Lotz: From Lady Gaga to "Legends of Tomorrow"

Being a “legend” is a far cry from her early days in showbiz for actress Caity Lotz.  As Sara Lance/White Canary on the CW seriesDC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Lotz is literally kicking butt as the leader of the time-traveling Legends team.  But before she was rocking her way through the space-time continuum, Lotz (pictured above) was performing with the likes of Lady Gaga as a backup dancer -- just one of a few vocations the actress dabbled in before turning to acting.  “I love to dance and then I did singing,” Lotz told MediaVillage during a recent conversation.  “But I wasn't Mariah Carey; it just wasn't my gift to the world and I felt I needed to move on.”

According to Lotz, it was while on tour with Avril Lavigne that she realized a change was needed.  “I was playing arenas and I wasn't excited about it at all,” she admitted.  “So I finished that tour and I was like, ‘I have to go.’  That's when it was time for me and that's when I started acting.  I never planned on being an actress.  It's weird; I don't feel like [one].”

In fact, Lotz’s road to superhero-dom is an interesting one.  “I danced because I love to dance,” she said.  “Then I got an agent and I was being paid to dance, which was cool.  But it was still about going to college and getting a job.  I ended up becoming a part of a singing group, moved to Europe and dropped out of school.  When I came back I didn't know what I wanted to do so I started taking acting classes.

“It wasn't that I necessarily wanted to become an actor,” she continued.  “I just thought it was an art form that was about feeling.  I wanted to feel those lows and highs in a safe environment and it was about the art of living in the moment.”

While Lotz admits those early days on the road were at times tough, she wouldn’t trade them for anything and savors the memories.  “It was fun," she recalled.  "I loved movement and expressing myself so that was great and Lady Gaga was good; she would come into rehearsals and [she’d] be doing it full out!  I remember doing one music video with her; it was like four in the morning, she showed up and was already Gaga.  She had sparkly underwear on, no one was there but she was in it … that girl, she puts it down!”

Steve Gidlow

Steve Gidlow, a long-time columnist for MediaVillage ("Behind the Scenes in Hollywood"), has written about television and pop culture since 1994, beginning in Australia.  Since moving to Hollywood in 1997, Steve has focused on celebrity interv… read more