Samantha Weinstein, the Canadian actress and voiceover artist who played Heather in the 2013 remake of “Carrie,” has died of a rare form of ovarian cancer, her family announced on Instagram. She was 28.
“Sam died on May 14th at 11:25 am surrounded by her loved ones at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto,” read the family’s obit. “After two and a half years of cancer treatment, and a lifetime of jet setting around the world, voicing a plethora of cartoon animals, making music, and knowing more about life than most people ever will, she is off on her next adventure.”
She documented her last few years on Instagram, including her wedding in October, which she called “the best day of my life… 20 months, 10 rounds of chemo, and a lifetime’s worth of memories later, here we are.”
In January 2021, she revealed that she had “emergency surgery to remove a massive cyst that swallowed one of my ovaries.” In April of that year, she said she’d been battling ovarian cancer “for the last three months.”
She added, “I’ll be documenting my journey as I undergo 3 rounds of chemotherapy. I’m a firm believer that representation in media matters, and cancer treatment is no different. Cancer can affect anyone – I’m living proof of that. I figure that if someone else out there with cancer sees me going through it, maybe it will give them a shred of strength too.”
A year later, she wrote an essay for LoveWhatMatters.com, “Getting cancer is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but in the strangest of ways it has also been the best thing. I’m still living with cancer, and with my parents since the future is uncertain (on the bright side, we’ve never been closer!). I continue to work in my dream career as a voice actor. I have more love in my life and for myself than I ever could have imagined, and I see every day as a gift.”
In addition to “Carrie,” Weinstein appeared in the Netflix limited series “Alias Grace,” and voiced characters in the animated Canadian TV series “D.N. Ace,” “Babar and the Adventures of Badou,” and “Gerald McBoing Boing.”
At age 10, she won the ACTRA award for Best Performance – Female for her performance in the short film “Big Girl.” She is the youngest recipient of the award to date.
