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By Noel Gallagher -- Free Press Entertainment & Lifestyles Reporter
Woodstock's Kevin Zegers was "very surprised" to be named one of 10 finalists for a YTV
Achievement Award in the young actor of the year category.
"It's a big honor just to to be nominated," says the 13-year-old performer of the television
award, the winner of which will be announced Feb. 14.
Zegers has been much in demand since starring in Air Bud, last summer's hit Disney movie about
a basketball-playing dog. He spent last summer in England playing Jim Hawkins opposite Jack
Palance's Long John Silver in a remake of Treasure Island; completed Nico the Unicorn with
Anne Archer and Michael Ontkean and was in Los Angeles for three weeks in December filming
It Came from the Sky (co-starring John Ritter and Baywatch star Yasmine Bleeth), which he
calls his "most enjoyable" acting experience so far.
His acting credits also include a role in the Michael J. Fox movie Life with Mikey and TV guest
spots on The X-Files, Goosebumps, Avonlea, Street Legal and a recurring part on Traders.
"It's not that I have this special talent for acting. It's all these people I work with who teach me,"
explains Zegers, a Grade 8 pupil at Holy Family French immersion school in Woodstock.
He adds meeting interesting, new people is the best part of his screen career, while being away
from his family -- parents Jim and Mary Ellen and sisters Krista and Katie -- is its most difficult
aspect.
"It's excellent news," says Mary Ellen Zegers of her son's award nomination. "Kevin's a good
kid who works hard and is very well-behaved and I think those are the qualities that have kept
him working."
The YTV awards, presented in association with CIBC, recognize exceptional accomplishments
of young people in 15 categories, ranging from innovation to bravery. Award winners receive a
$3,000 honorarium and an all-expenses-paid trip to Ottawa and then Toronto for the live
broadcast of the awards presentation ceremony on YTV, April 19 at 7 p.m.
Meanwhile, Kevin leaves home again Sunday for a three-month stay in Vancouver, filming the
sequel to Air Bud, which will reunite him with his favorite canine co-star Buddy.
"He taught me how to play basketball," quips the Oxford County teenager.
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