The Joey Awards is an annual Canadian awards show to be held in Vancouver on November 14, 2015 dedicated to recognizing young performers in Canada and educating parents on the world of showbiz.

Seven-year-old Ava first came onto the scene at the tender age of six months as a print model. At just 18 months, she had landed a short movie role and at the age of two, she appeared in a nationwide McDonald’s commercial.

In recent years, she has starred in America’s Tallest Baby, a 2011 short film parodying reality TV shows, and has also played a character named Rosa on the 2015 TV Series Rogue. She has recently completed two projects, a short titled Apart from Everything, starring Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black, and she played the lead role in another short film called Hope/less, a psychological thriller about a man wrestling with the taxing decision of whether he should take his daughter’s life or not.

Ava has starred alongside the likes of some of Canada’s top actors, like Tattiawna Jones and Sergio DiZio of Flashpoint, to name a few, and has walked the red carpet for her starring roles. Ava has most recently been nominated for a Joey Award for Best Actress in a TV Drama Role for her role in Rogue.

Ava credits her success to the support of her parents, Keisha and Al Augustin, and her older sister, Allison, who is also an actress (best known for her role in The Best Man Holiday) and helps her younger sister rehearse her scripts. Two young actresses in one family? It serves as a healthy dose of competition for the two sisters who push each other to do their best and has resulted in them working together on a small film. Ava’s big sister also served as her source of inspiration: when Allison would study lines for her roles, Ava would read lines as well. This further fuelled Ava’s passion for the craft and encouraged her to continue acting, just like her big sister. Her mother Keisha, a registered nurse, considers Ava’s nomination to be an honour and has this advice for parents whose children want to act: “Support your child’s dream, but more than anything else, make sure that it’s what they want, not what you want. Be a parent first.”

When Ava is not acting, she attends a French immersion school and enjoys gymnastics, singing, and watching movies with her family in her spare time. She will continue acting but she also hopes to become an elementary school teacher or a music teacher. Among her goals are to star in her first feature film and to have a lead role in a television series. Her advice to other young people wishing to become actors or actresses is to work at it and be confident. She says, “It doesn’t matter how you look or talk – it’s how you act. Bring all your passion and don’t be scared to do what you love.”

You can keep up with this rising star on Twitter @AvaAugustin and @ava_augustin on Instagram.