New article about Dustin at GlobeAndMail.com including some good quotes.

Milligan assured everyone that if things didn’t work out after five years, he would return to school and become a teacher. “But I was just lying,” he admits now. “I had no intention of ever having a Plan B, because in my mind, if you have a Plan B, you’re already planning to not make it.”

Click the above link (or on “read more”) to enjoy the rest of the article.

VANCOUVER — It’s an awfully long way from Yellowknife to the posh postal code made famous by the 1990s teenage TV soap that’s about to make its return to the small screen. But Dustin Milligan somehow makes the trip from Canada’s north to Beverly Hills - or at least to90210 - seem like the natural next step in his so-far storied acting career.

Milligan plays Ethan Ward, West Beverly’s top jock in the Beverly Hills 90210 spinoff (simply called 90210), which debuts tomorrow night. He has also just landed a lead role in the upcoming feature Extract, directed by Mike Judge (Office Space) and starring Jason Bateman and Ben Affleck. And while Milligan may have been loathe growing up to let his geographic location limit his dreams for stardom, he’s still pretty thrilled about how it’s all turning out.

“Coming from Yellowknife - that’s over 2,500 miles away - it’s one of those things where it just blows my mind,” Milligan said recently from Venice Beach, where he is now living the dream: starring in a hig-profile television series, posing for photo shoots in Malibu, skateboarding in the California sunshine. “It’s awesome.”

The new series, like the original, is set at West Beverly Hills High School and focuses on the various problems experienced by the school’s exceptionally good-looking students, along with some parents, grandparents and teaching staff. Original cast members returning to the program - at least for the first episode - include Shannen Doherty, back as Brenda Walsh, and Jennie Garth, who returns as Kelly Taylor (now a guidance counsellor at West Beverly).

At 23, Milligan is a little too young to have experienced the original 90210 blockbuster years firsthand (”I was outside flirting with the ladies in the sandbox” at the time, he explains) and found the show fairly dated the odd time he caught it in reruns. But he started paying close attention last spring.

“It was certainly surreal once I booked the job to actually watch [the show]; to watch all the old - sorry, original - characters sort of go through the now almost-cliché story lines, but at the time they were, like, groundbreaking.”

Milligan’s interest in television started with Canadian sketch comedy. His father was a big fan of The Kids in the Hall (”those are my heroes, man,” Milligan says) and SCTV, and would often get young Dustin and his older sister Molly out of bed to watch.

Those shows, coupled with the success of Canadian-born comedians Mike Myers and Jim Carrey, gave Milligan confidence that a guy like him could succeed in comedy, even if his heroes hailed primarily from Ontario, and not the Northwest Territories.

He also - and this is key - had the support of his parents and stepparents in following an unconventional path. “We were encouraged to dream big and to actually go after those dreams and not settle for life by default.”

In fact, it was his stepfather who gave Milligan the push he needed to pursue an acting career. They were at a movie - Milligan thinks it was Die Another Day - during his final year of high school, and Milligan was stressed out over choosing a postsecondary institution. “He said to me, ‘You know Dustin, you don’t have to go to school. You can do whatever you want.’ And it was the first time that I’d believed it.” Instead of going to college or university, Milligan decided to move to Vancouver and pursue an acting career.

Milligan assured everyone that if things didn’t work out after five years, he would return to school and become a teacher. “But I was just lying,” he admits now. “I had no intention of ever having a Plan B, because in my mind, if you have a Plan B, you’re already planning to not make it.”

In September, 2003, armed only with his good looks and scant experience (starring roles in high-school productions of Grease and Saturday Night Fever), Milligan drove down to Vancouver in his mother’s station wagon (she accompanied him and returned home a week later).

By January, he had his first audition - and got the role: a non-speaking part in the film The Long Weekend, playing a younger version of star Brendan Fehr’s character. (Milligan figures he got the role because both he and Fehr had a gap in their teeth at the time.)

For his first day of shooting, Milligan, who did not have a car, woke up very early in the morning, took the Skytrain to the set, and had, as he recalls, an emotional, life-changing experience.

“It was the first time that I’d ever seen a real movie camera. Here’s this thing pointed directly at my face and that was what really clinched it for me; when I really realized that it was worth it to leave home, it was worth it not to go to school, it was all worth it, because here you are. This is the beginning for you. This is the beginning of your dream come true.”

Later, Milligan landed a recurring role on the CW series Runaway, which he believes helped lead to the 90210 gig (also a CW program). Milligan, in fact, didn’t even have a live audition for 90210. A few mornings after sending in his tape, he was woken up by a telephone call from his Vancouver and L.A. agents, telling him he had gotten the part.

“That was really exciting, especially to be the first one cast. I didn’t even want to talk about it, out of fear of being fired later on.”

That didn’t happen, and this past June, Milligan gave up his Kitsilano apartment, put his stuff in storage, and made his way from Hollywood North to the actual Hollywood, where he has been shooting and promoting the series, and hanging out with his cast-mates - including fellow Canadian and DeGrassi alum Shenae Grimes.

The two actors have bonded over their Canadian roots. Sometimes Milligan refers to Grimes by a nickname: “Canada.” When Grimes’s mother sent her a photo of the 90210 billboard that went up outside the Eaton Centre in Toronto, Milligan was the only other person in the cast who understood what a big deal that was. Together, they take ribbing over the use of the word “eh” and their love for ketchup chips (a Canadian delicacy not available in the United States).

Not long ago, the two were shooting a scene on location: Milligan emerging from the ocean with a surf board, Grimes meeting him on the beach; the neon lights of the Santa Monica pier Ferris wheel behind them. Milligan says standing there, the enormity of the situation really hit him.

“I just looked at her and I was like, ‘Hey, Canada, can you … believe this?’ And we both had a moment where we both just shook our heads.

“It is just a dream come true.”

90210 premieres tomorrow on Global with a two-hour show, airing from 8 to 10 p.m. ET. For other time zones, check local listings.

A shout out

to Yellowknife

Dustin Milligan may be living the Hollywood high life playing a West Beverly Hills jock, but he hasn’t forgotten his real alma mater. He has set up a scholarship for students of École Sir John Franklin High School in Yellowknife who have an interest in pursuing a career in the arts.

The Enough Talk, Hurry Up and Do It Already Arts Scholarship Fund was established two years ago with money Milligan made from his series Runaway - money he says he knew he wouldn’t miss. $1,000 a year is awarded to a student who has been accepted into a postsecondary program of drama, film or writing.

Yes, Milligan - who did not attend college or university - recognizes the irony in the postsecondary requirement, but he says there had to be some boundaries. “Otherwise, I’d just be throwing money at kids.

“Kids,” he adds, “who are just like me.” M.L.