Alumna Courtney Gilmour is a two-time Juno-nominated stand-up comedian and television and voice actor (PROVIDED BY C. GILMOUR/University of Windsor)
By Kate Hargreaves
Courtney Gilmour (BA ’12) is a two-time Juno-nominated stand-up comedian, a voice on PAW Patrol and a recent addition to the cast of Trailer Park Boys.
She built that career the hard way — starting with zero comedy experience on a Windsor stage she had no business being on.
"I was booking a comic from Los Angeles to perform, and she asked me if I knew anyone local who could open for her," Gilmour says of her first stand-up set at a Christian campus fundraiser at UWindsor.
"I had zero idea. No experience with comedy. The next thing I knew, I agreed to be her opener."
The show may not have been her best, but something stuck.
"It was wild. I rambled for too long and had no clue what I was doing, but it was the most fun I've ever had," she says.
Born in Sarnia, Gilmour spent eight years in Windsor — including her undergraduate years studying English and Communications — before moving to Toronto to throw herself into the stand-up scene. She describes Windsor as her honourary hometown and credits those early, chaotic performances with shaping who she became on stage.
"I use it as a touchstone to remember how far I've come and how influential it was in forcing me to work harder," she says.
That hard work has paid off. Gilmour has performed at comedy festivals across the country, appeared on Just for Laughs and Canada's Got Talent and broken into television and voice acting.
A woman in a male-dominated industry and a congenital triple amputee, Gilmour does not shy away from her lived experience in her material — and she says audiences respond to that.
"For the most part, I find people are put at ease by my own confidence in myself and find it relatable because most of my material is more about them than it is about me," she says. "It's like showing them surveillance footage of how they behave around people like me and making fun of it. It's a 'caught in 4K' moment that helps them see things from my point of view. I'm not mean about it. I'm funny about it, so it works."
That directness extends to how she's built her career. To land the voice acting role of Lizzy Lemon on the children's cartoon PAW Patrol, Gilmour sent in take after take of her audition.
"I wanted it so badly,” she says. “I'm surprised they didn't block me.”
The Trailer Park Boys opportunity came to her — though she nearly missed it due to a scheduling conflict with PAW Patrol.
"The PAW Patrol to Trailer Park Boys pipeline is certainly an interesting career trajectory for me," Gilmour jokes.
In 2026, she will be touring Canada and the United States, developing new material for a special and working on projects she isn't ready to announce yet.
Her advice for aspiring comedians facing barriers: don't wait for doors to open.
"You've got to start knocking on doors, and if they still won't open, you've got to make your own stuff, start your own shows, do whatever you need to," Gilmour says. "You have to want it enough to try anything and everything."
For more information on upcoming tour dates and releases, visit courtneygilmour.com.