Canuck comedy fans will forever associate Andrea Martin with her screwball characters on the sketch comedy series SCTV. But this versatile Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress has starred in dozens of films (Wag the Dog, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Black Christmas), Broadway productions and TV series. (Trivia fans, take note: she’s the voice of Apu’s mother on The Simpsons.)

This spring, Martin stars in Insatiable, a pilot sitcom for Showtime, and Young Triffie’s Been Made Away With, a film by Mary Walsh. As if that wasn’t enough to fill her daytimer, she’s contemplating a major Broadway role and she’ll be in the film adaptation of St. Urbain’s Horsemen, based on the Mordecai Richler novel of the same name.

Martin says one of her favourite places in the world is Toronto’s High Park, a 399-acre refuge of calm on the western edge of bustling downtown.

“When I first moved to Toronto 30 years ago, I lived near High Park. When my boys were little, and Grenadier Pond would freeze over—that was in the days before global warming, when it used to actually freeze—I’d put the boys in a sled and my husband and I would take them down to the pond, just like they did in the 1800s. We’d just skate around and slide on the ice.

“There’s a little restaurant in the middle of the park where you can get hot dogs and a hot chocolate. I love the little train that goes through High Park in the summertime, and the ducks in the pond, and let’s not forget Shakespeare in the Park either.

“I can do a perfect 45-minute run from my old house, around High Park, [and] back to the house. When I lived there, I didn’t have to pay for a gym membership. The park was my fitness centre, and it was a source of great serenity and tranquility for me.

“When I moved to another home, my sister, Marcia Martin, bought my house. She did it over, and now it’s like a showpiece—all white walls and beautiful glass. It’s a great house, on a ravine, very private. It’s five minutes away from Bloor West Village, on the end of a street. Four storeys, built in the 1920s, overlooking High Park and Grenadier Pond and the river.

“Even though I’ve lived in many cities, I’ve always returned to Toronto. That’s where I got married. That’s where I had my two sons. That’s where my career started. I continue to have wonderful memories about that time. High Park and Toronto—that’s where my heart is.”