Hosts Cara Gee, left, and Jared Kesso look up at a screen during the announcement of the Canadian Screen Awards nominations in Toronto on Tuesday, January 13, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO - As comedy star Andrea Martin prepares to host the Canadian Screen Awards she wants to make it clear that although she was born in the U.S., she feels very much a part of this country.

"I'm a permanent resident of Canada, I got married here, I had my kids here, my career has gone on for 40 years here, I have a house here. I don't know how much more Canadian I can be, other than carry a passport," the "SCTV" alum joked Tuesday after the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television announced the 2015 nominees.

"It's so funny, you know, you wouldn't say to somebody who's British who's living in the United States, 'Well you're not American.' You don't say to Helen Mirren, who lives in the United States, 'Well you're not American.' I don't know what that is.

"Why do we have to put a nationality to it?"

Martin is also among the nominees for the awards, which honour homegrown film, television and digital media in 128 categories. She's up for best actress in a leading comedy role for playing the matriarch on Global's now-cancelled "Working the Engels."

"I haven't done work in Canada for a while so it's great to be amongst all the young people that are coming up in Canada," said Martin, 67, whose career honours include two Emmys and a Tony.

"Mommy" and "Orphan Black" lead the Canadian Screen Awards pack with 13 nominations apiece.

"Mommy," about a widowed mother and her troubled teenage son, is up for best picture and best direction for Montreal's Xavier Dolan.

The recognition comes after the drama shared the prestigious Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year and wowed numerous critics. But it failed to get any Golden Globe or Oscar nominations.

Meanwhile, Space's sci-fi clone hit "Orphan Black" is nominated in categories including best TV drama series and best actress for internationally acclaimed star Tatiana Maslany — two categories it also won last year.

Other big Canadian Screen Awards contenders include David Cronenberg's dark comedy film "Maps to the Stars" with 11 nominations, including best picture and best director.

Scoring 10 nominations apiece were the Bravo TV series "19-2," HBO Canada's "Call Me Fitz" and the CBC's "Mr. D."

"Mr. D" creator and star Gerry Dee, who plays a bumbling teacher, said some real-life educators may have helped give a boost to the series this season.

"I actually brought in a couple of teachers this year to the writers' room that I taught with and they brought a lot of insight into the teaching world, because I've been out of it for 10 years," said the former gym teacher.

"So certainly it was a group effort on that front."

Several of the nominations for the Montreal cop drama "19-2" came in acting categories, with stars Jared Keeso, Benz Antoine, Dan Petronijevic and Maxim Roy among the contenders.

"I think that the first ingredient was in the casting," said Antoine, who was also part of the original, acclaimed Quebec series on which the English-language version is based.

"They chose the right people to bring the right energy."

Roy said the recognition is like a "seal of approval."

"Being from Montreal, being from Quebec and knowing the success that '19-2' in French has had, it means a great, great deal, because it is a hugely popular, awarded show, so the bar was really high and you just wanted to pay homage to what was done."

The Canadian Screen Awards will air live from Toronto on CBC-TV on March 1.

Martin said she hopes the show will have the same relaxed and intimate feeling as the Golden Globes.

"I guess my goal is to be entertaining and to make the evening run smoothly and to bring to the Canadian public the great talent out there and inform them about what's going on — make them want to go out and see movies and watch more TV," she said.

"I worked a lot in Canadian television way before 'SCTV' and I'm proud to be part of the legacy of the great comedians that have come out of Canada."

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News from © The Canadian Press, 2015