Chandra West was born in Alberta, Canada, the youngest of nine children. Growing up in Oakville, Ontario, outside of Toronto, she developed an early interest in the arts. This led to ten years of intensive ballet training. When she was sixteen, she enrolled in a summer theater program at Oxford University in England, which started her down the path to pursuing a career in acting. She went on to study in the Theater Performance Program at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec.