'I'll be the first one to defend you.' Joséphine Jobert is ready for action in CBC's new drama Saint-Pierre

Joséphine Jobert had a lifelong fascination with a certain type of character: ready for action, first through the door. 

A medium had even told her that Jobert had been a "warrior" figure in a past life. The message felt right, the French actor said. On a girls' night out with friends, she considers herself the protector of the group. 

"I'm like, 'I'll be the first one to defend you,'" Jobert said. "So this is something I have in me."

Starring in the new series Saint-Pierre, Jobert meets her match in her character Genevieve Archambault — nicknamed "Arch" — a cop from Paris who becomes deputy chief on the French island of Saint-Pierre, just off the Newfoundland coast. But it's more than "just a police show," Jobert said: it's a character show that happens to be about cops.

In interviews, Jobert is warm, smiling and open. But Arch is tough and serious, with occasional flashes of dark humour — and a mysterious past to slowly be revealed.

"It's definitely a part of me," Jobert said of tough types, recalling pop culture heroes from her youth such as Jessica Alba's Dark Angel or Angelina Jolie's Tomb Raider.

"I do boxing. I love to train at the gym. Like I've never been involved in a fight, but if I had to, I think I would just go for it."

Saint-Pierre has its own intriguing aura — twin identities, existing between worlds. "It's French, but it's not," Jobert said. "It's like Canada, but it's not."

It's familiar terrain, however. The actor found herself caught between worlds as a youth: her artistic family of performers moved from France to Montreal when she was 12. It was a disaster at the time, Jobert said. No friends, nothing to do over the summer, starting over at school — particularly upsetting, she remembered, was having to wear a uniform for class. 

But Montreal shaped her nonetheless; it was part of North America, part of Canada, but also historically tied to France and distinctly unique. She grew up watching American movies and perfecting her English while also absorbing the Quebec culture around her for eight years.

"It's a safe place," Jobert said of Montreal. "I'm happy I didn't spend my teenage years in Paris … I know, like in Quebec, in Montreal, for women, they're very strong and powerful. They know what they want. They're not afraid to speak out. And it's not really the same — like at the time, it was not the same thing for women in France."

Adapting to other worlds became a recurring theme as she took acting roles across Europe in both French and English. She became the female lead in popular French youth series Foudre, followed by several other French series before she starred in her first English language role in British series Death in Paradise where she also played a transplanted police detective. For Jobert, being a transplant offered new perspectives and understanding; for her character Arch, it was an escape, and a new purpose.

And in Saint-Pierre, Arch isn't the only new arrival. 

The series opens with co-leading character Donny Fitzpatrick — nicknamed Fitz — freshly banished from his job when his personal and professional lives tangled in a particularly public way. Chastened and demoted, Fitz lands on the island's shores, unable to even speak French.

Although Arch had arrived first, they both find themselves in Saint-Pierre, not for the happiest of reasons.

"I think maybe that's how it started for them, but this island changed their lives," Jobert said. "It ends up being something extraordinary for them."

Despite her affinity for strong and aloof female characters, co-leading a new series brought her to tears the day before filming. Jobert was struggling to concentrate, to memorize her lines — she was freaking out. 

The pressure was overwhelming and she spent the day on the phone with family. Nerves before a new production is normal for actors, she said.

But all of that seemingly evaporated when she showed up to set the next day, facing Allan Hawco as Fitz — also the show's co-creator and writer. Did they have a chat to work out their characters' dynamic? Did they discuss finding their balance? Did she have to ask about her character Arch?

Not at all. They just jumped in.

"First take, I was like, 'Okay, good. This is it. This is us. This is Arch and Fitz,'" Jobert said. "It was so easy with him. And I don't know, it felt so right, and just the chemistry was there. It's been like this the whole time."

Arch was so well-formed in the script — as well as Fitz, and their rapport together — that Jobert felt free to hard-launch into the show. Trusting her instincts, she found her footing right away.

"Because it's so obvious in the script, it's a gift," Jobert said. "It's on paper. That's who (Arch) is. I'm more like an actor in the moment, as soon as I put my clothes on, the costume, and I'm on set with the other actors, and we start to interact with each other, this is the moment where I find my character."

"It just was, like, day one. Day one, first take."

Watch Joséphine Jobert in Saint-Pierre, now streaming on CBC Gem.