It’s hard to make it in Hollywood for a Canadian actor — especially if you’re undead.

Stereotypical Canadian traits such as politely saying please and thank you, holding doors, and apologizing profusely tend to undermine the scariness of a movie monster.

A clever new ad promoting the 2014 Canadian Film Fest, which opens at Toronto’s Royal Cinema this Thursday, spotlights this dilemma as Canadian actor Antoine Zombé tries to break into the movie business.

In the three-minute spot, Zombé (perhaps he’s French-Canadian) learns to overcome his inherent Canadianness by embracing his greatest strength: he actually is a brain-eating, limb-losing zombie. Talk about method acting.

The gambit pays off, and soon Zombé is starring in such masterpieces of undead cinema as “Rest in Pieces,” “Raging Zombie” and “Eating Private Bryan.”

The ad, which is capped off with the tagline, “Great films that happen to be Canadian,” aims to show that homegrown films, and the people working on them, shouldn’t be solely defined by their nationality.

“They’re not doing it just because they want to be in a Canadian movie. They want to be in a great movie that happens to be Canadian,” said Bern Euler, executive director of the Canadian Film Fest.

Another ad for the festival stars the best extra in the world — an actor so good at standing in the background, he’s had out-of-focus roles in some of the biggest movies ever made. The spot ends with the same message that many of those great films just happen to come from the great white north.

The festival sets its sights on dispelling myths surrounding made-in-Canada flicks.

“Some people think that as soon as they hear ‘Canadian movie,’ maybe the production value is not there, or maybe you’re not going to recognize any of the actors,” Euler said, which just isn’t true.

“So many of our movies are really cool, and they’re edgy,” he said.

The annual Canadian Film Fest celebrates and showcases the work of Canadian filmmakers. Now in its eighth year, the event takes place at the Royal from March 20-22.

Over the three days, the festival will screen six feature films and 14 short films from across Canada, including the closing night feature from Vancouver, Afterparty, which was almost entirely improvised.