From Melissa Hank of O.Canada.com:
Keeping Canada Alive puts spotlight on healthcare system
It’s one thing to enjoy a good medical yarn on shows like Code Black or Grey’s Anatomy. It’s another to know that the drama is real, and it’s happening in a hospital near you.
Keeping Canada Alive, CBC’s ambitious new six-part series, chronicles what happened in the 24 hours comprising May 6, 2015, at more than 40 health and homeware locations in 24 Canadian cities. Continue reading.
From Tony Wong of the Toronto Star:
Fashion mogul Joe Mimran enters the Dragons’ Den
“It was like going on a canoe trip with four other people you never met before. But at the end of the four weeks you know them pretty well. When there’s a difference in opinion is when it gets the most interesting. We’re all very Canadian of course. The first week I was very polite. It took me to the second week to get really in there to feel that I wasn’t offending a fellow Dragon. But you know that’s what the producers want to see, they want to see a difference in opinion. And you do see that.” Continue reading.
The Canadian fall television season gets its groove on, and Greg, Diane and Anthony spend the first part of the podcast discussing two weeks-plus of primetime chock-full of goodies like This Life, Love It Or List It, 22 Minutes, Rick Mercer Report, Dragons’ Den, Continuum, Haven, House of Bryan, Forgive Me, The Romeo Section and more. Check out our handy calendars to find out when everything debuts and returns.
We also chat about Blackstone‘s final season, reveal which Canadian network will broadcast Wynonna Earp and the ratings success of homegrown sci-fi series’ Orphan Black, Between, Dark Matter and Killjoys.
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Originally published in Reel West Magazine winter 2014
Bruce McCulloch is an accidental marketing genius. His stage show Young Drunk Punk was touring the country while he promoted the book it spawned, Let’s Start a Riot: How A Young Drunk Punk Became a Hollywood Dad, and the TV series it inspired, Young Drunk Punk, which aired on City in the spring and is rerunning on CBC this fall.
“They’re very different but it’s the same kind of comedic and emotional material,†says McCulloch, whose last TV production was the Kids in the Hall mini-series Death Comes to Town for CBC. “People trying to find their place in the world, a young guy who doesn’t fucking know anything and thinks he knows everything.â€
Young Drunk Punk the TV series stars Tim Carlson and Atticus Mitchell as teenagers Ian and Shinky in 1980s Calgary, “somewhere in the lost years between high school and ‘what’s next.’â€
McCulloch calls it “more comedically and thematically autobiographical than literal,†but the series does film in the townhouse community he grew up in. “Literally the same place. So where I walked around having gobbled acid as a 15 year old we’re now shooting.â€
Adding to the surreality is that McCulloch and his real-life wife Tracy Ryan play Ian’s parents. No nepotism there though: “Oh yeah, of course I auditioned her,†he says. “I auditioned her once for Superstar and she didn’t get the part. I’m a tough mofo.â€
He didn’t write a part for himself, either, and it’s probably fair to say he didn’t audition for it. “I never act unless someone asks me to, I never audition. I don’t think of myself as an actor first. Even when I wrote this it didn’t occur to me to play this character. Other people were saying ‘you’re the dad, right?’â€
While the stage show and book delve into some poignant territory amid the laughs, he describes the series humour as mostly silly. In the pilot, the boys are chased after trying to steal a stereo from a crowded party. But he’s also aiming for likeable and maybe more importantly, relatable characters.
“We’re all lost. Even the people who seem like they’re not are lost. The guidance counsellor is lost. You just keep going forward,†he says. “At 50 I feel like a punk maybe even more than I did then. I feel like I’m different from everyone else. Yes, but we all are. The guys in the TV show are years away from understanding that.â€
McCulloch found his band of fellow outsiders in the other members of Kids in the Hall, a bond that continues 30-something years later. They’ve done shows this year in Toronto and the United States and McCulloch says they plan to work together again when the stars and schedules align. But he’s not yet looking for the next big thing, any more than he did back in the early days of his career.
“I thought I’d like to make a living writing, and figured we should get on TV. But I had no plan, I just wanted to make stuff,†he says. “My own personal journey in this world is to enjoy what I’m doing and not be on the next thing.”
The current thing is working within the big machine that is television production, adjusting as he goes to capitalize on what the actors bring to the part and what material lands the way he wanted it to. In the editing room in Toronto, McCulloch says he can now start to wonder about Young Drunk Punk “is this the coolest show ever or is it just really weird?â€
“We have a lot of Canadian shows trying to be like American shows, to look like, talk like American shows. I have pride in this being Calgary in 1980s. We talk about the Flames and Oilmen. I thought Less Than Kind was wonderful for much the same reason – it felt like I was there.â€
Does he worry about the show’s reception, given the scrutiny Canadian comedies are under lately?
“Never hope or you’ll get your heart broken,†he says before adding “I feel pressure with everything I do.â€
“We don’t do many TV shows here, so I want this to do well for me but for the young actors, the executives, the fans, for everyone who wants to do TV shows.†He pauses. “Thanks, you’ve just heightened my sense of failure and doom.â€
The first season of Young Drunk Punk re-airs on CBC starting Tuesday, October 6.Â
It doesn’t take long for Hope Zion’s newest junior resident, Dr. Cassie Williams—played by Kim Shaw—to make an impression on Dr. Alex Reid in Thursday’s new episode. Cassie’s bubbly enthusiasm and confidence attracts the attention of all. But this being Saving Hope, nothing on the surface is truly what it seems, and key facets to Cassie’s life are uncovered by the end of “Start Me Up.”
Shaw’s gig on Saving Hope is the latest in an impressive body of television work. The Windsor, Ont., born actress has appeared in sitcoms like Two and a Half Men, Anger Management and How I Met Your Mother, and high-profile dramas like NCIS and The Good Wife. We spoke to Shaw about her career, playing Cassie and winter weather.
You’ve had a really varied career. You’ve been on comedies like Two and a Half Men, Anger Management and How I Met Your Mother, and dramas like The Good Wife and NCIS. That’s a lot of high-profile stuff.
Kim Shaw: It’s been a roller coaster. You never feel like you work enough. I moved to New York when I graduated from high school and went to theatre school and kind of started working right out of the gate. I was very lucky to find people who wanted to work with me and put in the time, management-wise. Then I got sick of the cold and moved to L.A. about five years ago and, happily, haven’t had to waitress since I made that move. When you’re a comedy actress, which I kind of consider myself, you never really feel like you ever get a chance to show that darker side. And then when you’re doing a dark show, you just want to be light! [Laughs.] It’s been fun to explore all of that.
How did you get the role of Dr. Cassie Williams?
I’m a Canadian citizen but have been living in the States and I applied to have a Social Insurance Number. Saving Hope was the first audition I had after getting the card. It was a self-tape, so my boyfriend—God bless him—put me on tape about 20 times, just trying to get the takes right for the scenes they had given me. You send that away and kind of forget about it after it’s gone. I got that wonderful phone call that every actor dreams of—that they were interested—and they tested me out of Los Angeles and I booked it and flew to Toronto.
My best friend is a nurse, my mom is a nurse and my brother is a doctor, so I’ve had that repertoire in my system but have never gotten the chance to do it myself. I’ve played heroin addicts and things on the other side of it, but this is so challenging. Everyone on set has been so lovely … it’s lovely to join a well-oiled machine and feel like you fit in immediately.
How does your family feel about you playing a doctor?
I called my brother and told him, ‘I’m a doctor now! In your face! Mine happened a lot quicker than yours!’
Has anyone on-set, like Michael Shanks or Benjamin Ayres played practical jokes on you?
Wendy Crewson is the most trouble on-set. She is just the most fun; she is an amazing person and cracks everybody up. I have a couple of story arcs with her and I’ve learned so much from her, from who I want to be as a person and who I want to be on-set. Erica has just had a baby, so she has this glow and joy about her all of the time which is fun to be around. I don’t have a lot of scenes with Michael, but during the table reads he likes to throw in zingers and make everyone laugh.
Cassie certainly makes an impression when she appears on Thursday night. She’s spunky and ready to go.
She’s over-eager, but I think anyone—on the first day of the rest of your life—is excited to get started. I’m sure that’s how I came across on our first table read.
That excitement is tempered by an incident that occurs a little later on.
As medical students, I think you think you’re ready but you’ve only been cutting open dead bodies for the past four years and you crave that real OR. It’s overwhelming as an actor to be in the OR for the first time because you’re covered in plastic, the gloves are so hard to put on, you’re sweaty and your mask is on. I’m glad I got to show how I felt on the inside.
At the end of the episode, there is another incident, this time involving Dr. Curtis. How long will it take for that storyline to shake out?
It’s a little bit of a slow burn, but it’s a juicy storyline once we get into it.
What can you tell me about Cassie’s evolution this season?
The thing I enjoy about her the most is that she is extremely empathetic, which I can relate to, and she is going through this thing. She thinks she wants to be a doctor and realizes how hard it is to see a patient as a patient and not a person. She struggles with that, and how blunt she has to be. Doctors have to be really cold sometimes and she has a hard time with that. She is one of the smartest doctors—she knows her stuff—but she struggles with the emotion of the new job.
Saving Hope airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.
