Riverdale star Cole Sprouse clashed with a busker in downtown Vancouver this week after the performer refused to stop singing while crews filmed nearby.

In a video shared to YouTube this week, a crowd can be seen standing around actors Sprouse and Lili Reinhart on Robson Street, between Howe and Hornby. Sprouse and Reinhart, who are seen in costume in the clip, currently star as Jughead and Betty on the teem drama series inspired by the Archie Comics.

The clip begins with Sprouse attempting to reason with the musician, explaining that the crew was trying to film nearby.

“We can’t film anything. I know you’re asking for compensation; we’re asking simply for an hour,” says Sprouse.

As a crew member tries to speak with the musician, she responds over an amplified mic: “Yeah, and I’ve offered compensation. So I’ve offered for you guys to offer me.”

Sprouse then turns to the crowd and begins to explain the exchange: “Just in case you guys don’t know how this thing works, this is one of the secrets of film production. We give a location to the city and then some scam artists come out and say-”

“Excuse me? Excuse me,” interjects the musician.

Another video shows the same exchange continuing from a different angle.

“I’m going to interrupt you — I play here regularly. Regularly, everyday,” the female performer can be heard saying over an amplified mic.

Meanwhile, Sprouse is facing away from the performer; his comments are not clearly audible though the word “compensation” can be heard.

The performer continues: “So you guys came into where I perform? So you can’t call me a scam artist because you guys came into where I perform.”

Sprouse then turns to leave, a smile on his face, before stopping to addressing the performer: “I asked you to stop … for an hour.” He then shakes his head as he walks away.

“You guys are cheap. You guys are so cheap. And rude. And interfering,” the performer says just as the clip cuts.

Comments online seem to indicate the performer had continued to play after crews called for quiet in the area while shooting. Others pointed out filming notices had been posted in the area for some time, which is common practice for shoots taking place in public areas.

According to Sahara Dosanjh, who filmed the video and shared it to Twitter, crews were preparing to film a scene just before 10 p.m. Wednesday when the confrontation took place.

“This singing lady close to set could be heard, and she wouldn’t stop,” she told Postmedia. “So they tried filming with her singing in the background. But that didn’t work, so Lili and Cole came forward to ask her to stop.”

Dosanjh said the crew was overheard initially offering to pay her to stop, but when the busker allegedly named too high a price, the crew declined.

“They refused so she kept playing louder and stayed longer than usual – she was supposed to leave at 10, but stayed until 11 – so all the fans, including myself, went to talk to her to distract her so they could film their scene and it worked,” said Dosanjh.

According to City of Vancouver bylaws, buskers are only permitted to perform between the hours of 10 a.m. and 10 p.m., and the maximum performance time is 60 minutes at any one location. An entertainment permit is required in order to busk in the 800-block of Robson Street.

The performer is believed to be North Vancouver musician Megan Regehr, who goes by the stage name of Babe Coal and who frequently busks in the Granville Entertainment District in downtown Vancouver. Regehr posted a series of tweets early Thursday morning that claim she was arrested by Vancouver police.

“I support, appreciate and have great relationships with our fine Police Officers who serve but I’m having experience with corruption in some,” she tweeted. “Tonight I was detained unlawfully w/ no charge & not read my rights for the purpose of intimidation in a non Police Civil matter.

“I was not breaking the law and was performing in an area that was not the Jurisdiction of the Vancouver Police.”

Regehr’s court record indicates several charges from 2014 of Vancouver bylaw infractions for performing without the proper entertainment permit. In 2012, she was also issued six fines for noise bylaw infractions in North Vancouver, according to the North Shore News.

While film crew can be seen in the clip, it’s unclear whether there was set security on site to help ease tensions.

Vancouver police Const. Jason Doucette told Postmedia that a call for a noise complaint was made to police just after 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“It appears a film company was shooting near the Art Gallery and had to stop filming because a street performer began playing her amplified music across the street at a very high volume,” said Doucette in an emailed statement.

“The performer placed her speaker facing the direction of the film set and played loud enough that the film crew could not record without capturing the performance from Robson Street.”

Doucette said officers tried to mediate the situation but “the performer chose not to compromise and coincidentally only turned off her equipment when the film crew decided to pack it in for the night.”

No arrests were made but police have recorded the incident.

“Should a pattern of disruptive behavior develop, we may look at the possibility that the performer is purposely interfering with other people’s lawful use of property,” said Doucette.

Sprouse, who is also an accomplished photographer, has previously starred in The Suite Life of Zack & Cody alongside his twin brother Dylan. Sprouse also appeared on longtime NBC sitcom Friends as Ben, Ross’ son with ex-wife Carol.

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Ask actor, writer, singer and producer Kelly McCormack what kind of movies she makes and she doesn’t hesitate with her answer: “The kind under duress,” she said, laughing, over the phone from Los Angeles recently.

McCormack is a firing-on-all-cylinders DIY creative. If there’s a hat, she’ll wear it.

Vancouver actor, writer and producer Kelly McCormack.

This year has seen the Vancouver native (she points out her family has been here for five generations) barnstorming through the entertainment business.

McCormack joined the cast of the hit Space/Syfy series Killjoys. She is on board for new Comedy Central/CBC series Crawford, directed by Mike Clattenburg (Trailer Park Boys). She is in the digital original series How to Buy a Baby (CBC), and is back for season three of the digital series That’s My DJ.

At this very moment you can go online and see her in action in the hilariously weird CBC digital series The Neddeaus of Duqesne Island. McCormack also produces the series under her Floyder Films banner.

“I’m an actor, writer, producer I say yes to so much. I wear so many hats, and I am a workaholic,” said McCormack.

“In Canada I don’t think we are afforded the same kind of egos they are in the States. If you are an actor in Canada it doesn’t mean you’re making a lot of money. If you are on a show it doesn’t mean anything. I audition against actors who have been series regulars on multiple shows. In the States that would never happen.”

The desire to do different jobs is one part personality and another part self preservation.

“For me, as a female actor, I read scripts and I get auditions for stuff where I am like ‘God, I can’t relate to that type of woman,’” said McCormack.

“It’s well documented that there is so much expectation and poorly written female roles. So for me, who is a bit of a weirdo and comes from an experimental theatre background and was in New York for four years naked on stage playing a tree, well, I had much deeper interest in playing roles that actually felt like they were authentic to who I was, and also were a lot more fun.”

CBC digital series The Neddeaus of Duqesne Island is a comedy mockumentary.

Fulfilling the fun requirement, at least for the viewer, is the The Neddeaus of Duqesne Island.

A 10-part 1970s mockumentary about an odd, isolated, island-dwelling, potato-eating family, The Neddeaus has a Christopher Guest comedy meets Hinterland’s Who’s Who and found footage feel.

McCormack plays Eloida who, with her twin sister Elène (Caitlin Driscoll), torment their older mainland-dreaming brother Elmer, played by series creator and writer Aaron Schroeder.

The idea is a documentary was recently discovered in the CBC archives after the federal government of the day had shelved the show after there were whispers of, well, untoward behaviour.

For the trailer the production got some big names including former prime minister Jean Chretien and David Suzuki to weigh in on the Neddeau family.

“If wasn’t from B.C., if I wasn’t from Vancouver, I wouldn’t be able to produce this show,” said McCormack, who splits her time between Toronto and Los Angeles.

“We basically shot this TV show up north in the woods — on a remote island (Sparrow Lake near Orillia, Ont.) for four weeks. I had to drive three different types of boats, build a bunch of fires and make bear hangs.

“I was driving around in costume looking like a demonic twin from The Shining.”

McCormack’s work ethic was not lost on the small cast and crew of The Neddeaus.

“Kelly brings a vivacity to set that buoys even the most jaded. She is a ball of energy. Not in your face about it, but if you need a little jolt of positive vibes have a quick chat with her,” said Tim Walker who plays Bichon, the Neddeau family patriarch and husband to Vangeline (Tara Samuels).

“Kelly is so focused on her job(s) — I add the ‘s’ because it’s rare in my experience that she is doing just one thing; she is a master of all trades. But no matter how busy she is she makes time for you if you need her.” 

Directed by Ford Francis Mayflower (not a real person), and narrated by a 16-year-old (not true) Colin Mochrie, The Neddeaus is a Canadian comedy win. It is clever, absurd and looks like home.

“We were unapologetically making a Canadian show for Canadians about Canada,” said McCormack. “I have no problem saying this, but I can’t imagine a more Canadiana driven show. You know, those NFB docs we watched in school when there was a substitute teacher?”

Actors Kelly McCormack and Caitlin Discoll play twin sisters in The Neddeaus of Duqesne Island. 

The series is so well done and authentic looking that some people online have admitted to being duped into thinking this was an actual documentary about an actual family.

“When we pitched to the CBC they asked: ‘what do you want for this, what kind of reaction?’ I said ‘I dunno, I kind of want to make people uncomfortable,” said McCormack. “I want to make people feel ‘what is this we are watching? What is this?’ ”

Most recently, McCormack’s creative outlet has been touring with the opera Charlotte: A Tri-coloured Play with Music, and preparing for her next film Sugar Daddy, due to go to camera later this year or early in 2018.

Sugar Daddy is an all-female production, with internationally renowned music video director Wendy Morgan (Gnarls Barkley, Janelle Monáe) helming the project.

“(McCormack’s) A firecracker, in all the best ways. Kelly is a talented multi-hyphenate who is taking her career into her own hands. It’s inspiring, and something we are seeing with female talent around the world,” says Lauren Grant, whose Clique Pictures along Violator Films is producing Sugar Daddy.

Sugar Daddy follows the story of struggling musician Darren (McCormack), who looks to land some extra cash by signing onto a Sugar Daddy website. For those not in the know, Sugar Daddy is for rich older guys to go on dates with younger women and then buy them stuff and pay the bills.

Also coming up later in the year is the debut of new sitcom Crawford. The word is the 13-episode first season of the Clattenburg and Mike O’Neill co-created show focuses on a 30-something man that moves back in with his parents and parlays his connection with raccoons into a business.

McCormack can’t spill the beans on this new series other than to say her character required four hours of hair and makeup, and it was one of the “weirdest” things she has ever done on camera.

“The writing is like nothing I have ever read before,” said McCormack. “I read so many scripts because I auditioned for a bunch of different characters. I thought ‘I have to get on this show, it’s the weirdest thing.'”

McCormack, not surprisingly, speaks a mile a minute. She gets stuff done, that’s just the way it is. In fact it is always the way it has been.

“If you got partnered with me in school for a project, I would be: ‘you guys are in luck I’m going to do this whole thing myself,’” said McCormack.

McCormack says her endless energy and full plate ethos has a lot to do with her watching her mother balance four jobs and raising four kids on her own.

“I don’t do spare time. I don’t like relaxation,” said McCormack. “I’m just wired a certain way. It’s not everyone’s lifestyle. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

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They call themselves The Bald and The Beard.

To fans of The Amazing Race Canada, they made their mark this season as determined father-and-son team Shabbir and Zed Dhalla.

It looked like the Vancouver-based pair had a solid shot to win two cars, a trip around the world and the $250,000 grand prize — until their chances were wiped out in an intense challenge at an urban beach club in Bangkok, Thailand.

It all played out during a recent episode when Zed and Shabbir chose to “shred it” at the Flow House. This meant riding on a tiny wakeboard in a giant wave tank, staying upright long enough to successfully pull down an overhead flag.

The task was difficult enough for host and former Olympic gold medallist Jon Montgomery to master. He had to tackle the wave tank in order to tape a program intro. And it was no piece of cake for Zed, a 27-year-old — and very fit — national account manager for a health-care company.

For his 57 year-old father, however, it proved too much. Game and competitive, he was also exhausted and sleep deprived.

The duo could have, and eventually did, choose instead to “bling it,” meaning seek out specific decorations at a local market and pimp out one of the ubiquitous “Tuk-Tuks,” tourist scooters seen all over downtown Bangkok.

Shabbir, right, and son Zed Dhalla competed on the latest season of The Amazing Race Canada.

Unfortunately, they just didn’t switch Detours fast enough. Shabbir kept trying to capture the flag.

“I told my wife that there is a fine line between being determined and being stubborn,” Shabbir says. ” “For me, on that day, the line was blurred.”

The oldest competitor in the race, he was coming off a gruelling, 48-hour stretch as teams raced from Beijing to Shanghai to Bangkok, part of the way on a high-speed train.

In addition to proving himself as a tough competitor, the elder Dhalla is also a cancer survivor.

“By the time they found it, it was Stage 3 and I was given less than 50-50 odds,” he says. For Shabbir, passing his five-year, cancer-free threshold beats any TV title.

“I look at life completely differently now, with a lot more gratitude,” he says. “We’re blessed to live in a country that offers a lot of advanced medical breakthroughs.”

Born in the Congo, he grew up in Tanzania. “My mom was in the UN so we travelled around,” he says. By the time the family moved to Central Africa, the region had become politically unstable under the terror inflicted by Uganda dictator Idi Amin.

“My mom had to make a decision,” he explains of the move that brought the family to Canada. The family started over, taking any jobs they could find and, for a while, lived out of one bedroom in a hotel.

With all his dad has been through, Zed saw an opportunity to enter the race and share a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“I’ve always pushed him all my life,” he says. “We’ve always been competitive with one another as well — whether it was who could get the highest score on our iPhone game, or, when I was a kid, who could run up the stairs fastest.”

The duo mapped out a strategy before arriving for Day 1 of Amazing Race Canada. Their plan was to play nice and connect with as many teams as possible to try to avoid getting saddled with a nasty “U-Turn.” Four other teams had given assurances they wouldn’t card the Dhallas.

“We had set ourselves up for a really deep run,” says Zed. “Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out that way.”

Zed admits it stings to think of how much further they could have gone. Until their final day, they had never been in the bottom two teams at any point. They finished first and second in the two legs before their elimination, winning a trip to Chicago along the way.

Going home at the halfway point, “was definitely a tough bullet to bite,” Zed admits. “I’m super proud, however, of how my dad did, mentally and physically. You can imagine how much more difficult it would be for him than for a younger contestant, especially after all he’s been through in life — cancer and everything.”

There were, of course, triumphs and memories along the way. Seeing the Great Wall of China was, as Zed puts it, “pretty damn cool.” Mastering a synchronized dive off the five-metre board at the National Olympic Sports Centre in Beijing was a personal triumph for Shabbir, who had a fear of heights.

“We just went for it,” he says. “We hit the water so hard, that if you don’t shut your eyes, they take a huge hit.”

Their TV run having ended in May, Zed and Shabbir have had to keep a lid on the outcome back home. Even Zed’s mom, Shabbir’s wife, Yasmin, has had to follow along each week on TV.

“She’s been awesome, so enthusiastic and proud of us,” he says. “Not one ounce in her body is jealous or wants to stop hearing about it.”

The Dhallas hosted a screening for friends and relatives a few weeks ago when the episode aired where they won the trip to Chicago. It was all a surprise to Yasmin as well as Zed’s sister, Safeena.

Now that they’ve had a taste of fame, would either enter another reality competition? Zed says he won’t be racing anywhere soon — he tore his ACL playing basketball the day after he got back to Vancouver from Bangkok. He will not, as a few friends have suggested, try out to be the next Bachelor Canada.

Both would, however, line up tomorrow for another shot at The Amazing Race Canada.

 “I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Zed says. So would Shabbir. “These legs still have another couple of years left in them.”

The Amazing Race Canada continues Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. on CTV.

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RERUNS OF AUGUST: On this day 2003 years ago, 40-year Roman emperor Augustus kissed his wife and said: “Live mindful of our wedlock, Livia, and farewell.” Then, abiding by a favourite utterance, he died “quicker than you can cook asparagus.” Known previously as Mensilis Sextilis, the month was renamed to honour Augustus who “found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.”

The images here are of folk who provided both bricks and mortar for this column by appearing in it over several past Augusts. Each participated in Vancouver’s continuing emergence as a city of modern-day marble, which was late architect Arthur Erickson’s term for an infinitely useful Roman invention: concrete. Also valuable today, especially by the occupant of a Washington, DC, mansion that resembles marble but is white-painted sandstone, is this comment from Augustus: “Better a safe commander than a bold.”

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1995: At the Molson Indy auto race, mayor-turned-Liberal MLA and premier-to-be Gordon Campbell started his stopwatch on B.C. finance minister and premier-to-be Glen Clark.

2007: Salsa choreographer Raymondo Chan, who got macaw Picasso squawking with wingtip tickles, saved him from a seagull-attacked escape to a condo balcony.

2002: Playboy model-actress Kimberley Stanfield’s fake cigarette promoted the film Under The Bridge of Fear, but director Mackenzie Gray’s eye-pops were real.

2005: Mayor and senator-to-be Larry Campbell joined teacher-training drummer Jennifer Kydd at a Fringe Festival parade to Granville Island Brewing’s taproom.

2004: Carmen Ruiz y Laza wrangled a planeload of David Ho’s colleagues and friends when his short-lived Harmony Airlines inaugurated service to Hawaii.

2003: With his Lumiere Light cookbook on the presses, since-closed Lumiere restaurant’s chef Rob Feenie hosted a barbecue that included Feenie’s Wienies.

2002: After Order of Canada ceremonies, Rogers Communications vice-chair Philip Lind and daughter Sarah vamped with Queen Elizabeth Park bronze sculptures.

2010: Television reporter-host Meena Mann wore the right number but may not have had the right phone number for a concert after-party that Lady Gaga skipped.

2009: Arts Umbrella dancers Nelle Lee and Anya Saugstad backed InTransitBC president-CEO Jean-Mar Arbaud at party for the Canada Line his firm had just built.

2011: Garment firm principal Mark Taubenfligel showed a British Triumph-based “bobber” he’d built, possibly discomfiting father and Mercedes-Benz dealer George.

2014: Six-foot singers Tracy Weddell and Leeta Liepins’ height suited the huge Carol Bruce steam-punk necklaces they wore at late-night Main and Hastings Street.

2008: Chef Robert Belcham seemed ready to cut Fuel restaurant partner Tom Doughty’s throat rather than open Main Street’s Campagnolo with him.

2010: Pacific Western Brewery president-CEO and near teetotaller Kazuko Komatsu added Hefeweizen beer to her equally organic Amber Ale and Lager.

2014: Three-decade wife Sylvia seemed inured to animated-cartoon firm principal Danny Antonucci’s attentions at a birthday party for painter Laurie Papou.

2000: Hair stylist Remington Schultz ensured that big-screen and TV children’s show actress Karen Campbell’s coif stayed in place at a Pride Week kickoff party.

2015: Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra chair Kevin Chen amused conductor Ken Hsieh with his relief over rain ceasing at a VanDusen Botanical Garden fundraiser.

CHANCE’S ENCOUNTERS: Showbiz has been very good to Adam Hurstfield, a.k.a. Adam H. After an early R&B-hip-hop singing career in Mexico and Central America, he returned to Vancouver, set up as a music producer-director and recorded the likes of Elise Estrada who will headline the Albatross Music Festival here Sept. 14-15. Now he literally has another chance. That’s his and Aby Cervantes’ son Chance, who began screen-acting in 2011 at age four and, after pictures like Mark & Russell’s Wild Ride, Darc and Project MC2, is on a roll today. Now on three TV series, including multiple episodes of Ghost Wars, he’s on hold for a Disney starring role. On one day recently, he booked for Nickelodeon’s animated Paw Patrol and the feature film Eggplant Emoji. Making a somewhat out-of-character pitch to director Jake Szymanski (Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates), Chance reportedly said: “You need an obnoxious kid, and I’m the obnoxious kid. Shall we sign?”
“Chance is really good at knowing his audience,” Adam said, beaming.

After corporate and individual donations helped repair his Steveston Lifeboat, marine artist Kohn Horton saw it recommissioned as Delta Lifeboat.

SHIPSHAPE AGAIN: Lifeboats save those in peril on the sea. But who saves imperilled lifeboats? That worried feted marine artist John Horton when his 52-foot Steveston Lifeboat was badly damaged during a 2015 crew-training exercise, and repairs drained his billfold. Built in Pearl Harbour in 1944, the vessel became former Royal Navy coxswain Horton’s property in 1988. Its Canadian Lifeboat Institution volunteer crew has reportedly undertaken some 600 maritime rescues since. Aided by corporate and individual donations, the vessel was refurbished and renamed Delta Lifeboat. With a Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft moored alongside, Delta Mayor Lois Jackson and other dignitaries fronted a dedication ceremony at Ladner’s government wharf, whereupon Horton and crew resumed their interrupted duties.

GO FOR IT: The Canadian Coast Guard will host The This IS You event Oct. 5 with professional aircraft pilot Kirsten Brazier’s Achieve Anything Foundation (achieveanything.ca) reminding young women that all aviation, aerospace, marine and defence jobs are within their reach.

The man sculling on Vancouver’s 1910 waterfront in John Horton’s The End of Sail painting displays a technique adaptable to stand-up paddle boards.

STAND FAST: Recreational watercraft makers might benefit from John Horton’s 1987 The End of Sail painting. It shows a man propelling a dinghy with a transom-mounted oar. Such easy-to-master “sculling” is speedy and, for someone who accessed his Eagle Island home that way, ideal for rainy days. It could be the next big thing for standup paddle boarders.

Dirty Apron chef David Robertson and Science World’s Clare Charnley saw gymnast Malia Bulat serve at the Alfresco benefit for inner-city school students.

VAULTING AMBITION: Science World and Dirty Apron cooking school’s youth programs benefited from a recent banquet for 130. The Alfresco title fitted the locale: Science World’s rooftop patio. Dirty Apron chef David Robertson’s students did virtual handsprings helping prepare a tuna, sablefish and beef short rib meal. One youngster, vault specialist Malia Bulat, 11, did so literally at Hawaii’s Aloha Gymfest and numerous B.C. gymnastic tournaments, with more ahead. The Alfresco event reportedly raised $20,000 for Science World’s after-school programs for inner-city Grade 1-to-7 students.

Standing models Lilian Leopold, Liv Hanna and Amina Miller wore designs by Paulina Camizao seated between Julia Wong and Jeevitha Kandasamy.

POOL PARTY: Founded in Brisbane, Australia, the League of Extraordinary Women “inspires the next generation of female entrepreneurs.” Around the Westin Bayshore hotel pool recently, its local chapter staged a show of Zao Swimwear that city-based designer-principal Paulina Camizao debuted to U.S. retailers at the Curva Las Vegas industry exposition. Modelling the classic-hinting suits were members of the agency that ever-entrepreneurial global fashion model Liz Bell founded in 1992. The event will repeat in January, organizer Julia Wong said, although likely not outside.

Seen here at Planet Hollywood in 2001, deejay Red Robinson will end his 650 CISL radio show Sunday and go off-air — again and likely not for long.

SITUATION RED: Radio station 650 CISL hasn’t exactly handed Red Robinson his head on a platter. But the AM broadcaster’s switch to a sports format means the veteran DJ’s weekly four-hour show will die at 4 p.m. Sunday. Joining him on-air will be music-biz heavy Bruce Allen, of whom Robinson said: “He’s a gentleman who survived in a field full of crooks and rotters by brains and being tough.” Robinson himself survived by generating huge 1950s listenership for emergent rock ’n’ roll. Perhaps he’ll close Sunday with the Four Tunes’ doo-wop version of Marie, the tune that launched his career on CJOR at 4:05 p.m. on Nov. 12, 1954. As noted here 50 years later, Robinson “put the bop in the bop sh’bop sh’bop, and the ram in the rama-rama ding dong.”

WORD KEPT: Saloon-jazz vocalist Kenny Colman survived a 1985 brain tumour, vowed to “keep singing till I lose my hair,” and died, still coiffed, still singing, at age 85 this week.

Exotics will rule Luxury & Supercar Weekend, but Dr. Robert Follows’ 1933 Talbot, if it returns, would bring a prestige that moderns can’t always match.

CLASS ACT: Organizers, exhibitors and attendees are revving up for Luxury & Supercar Weekend Sept. 9-10. Some $250-million-worth of vehicles costing to $4.5 million each will occupy VanDusen Botanical Garden lawns. For classic elegance, let’s hope Dr. Robert Follows returns with his 1933 Talbot that can still hit 130 km/h, albeit not on bridges where modern exotics sometimes disgrace themselves.

DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Imperial Oil charged 4.4 cents a litre in 1907 when Canada’s first filling station opened at Cambie and Smythe, but gasoline won’t be available at any price downtown when the same company’s Burrard-at-Davie Esso station goes pumps up.

malcolmparry@shaw.ca
604-929-8456

Nations at War

Sept. 6, 10 p.m.| APTN 

While researching the controversial figure Edward Cornwallis for a Nova Scotia website, Tim Johnson soon found himself knee-deep in stories he wanted to tell.

“As I learnt more about Cornwallis and the Indigenous people I kind of ended up going down a rabbit hole,” said Johnson, referring to the British military officer’s mistreatment of Indigenous people.

Johnson started thinking long and hard about these stories as he began to realize that aside from some French textbooks he saw during his time in French immersion that the history of the First Nations he learned in school wasn’t complete.

From that 2008 rabbit hole of information Johnson pulled out the early idea for the new APTN-TV series Nations at War that premieres Sept. 6.

Actor David Lyle hosts the new APTN show Nations at War. The 13-part series takes at look at the battles First Nations people fought against each other and the waves of Europeans that came to Canada. It premieres Sept. 6.

“I ended up looking up similar situations across Canada,” said Johnson, who is also head writer and story producer on the show. “When I went to school, anytime you talked about Europeans or Asians it was like: ‘Empire and class of civilizations,’ it was this very grandiose inspiring terms behind them and anytime we talked about the First Nations it was very patronizing.

“Once you add this other perspective of the First Nations being of equal weight and equal importance and equal players you see how completely different the story of Canada is,” added Johnson.

One of those “different” stories is the First Nations people that were first encountered by the Europeans.

“I think that the big thing is that when people think of people coming over from Europe, the settlers they always think of native people as these unorganized not very self-sufficient people. But the native nations were actually very good business people,” said Johnson. “They had trade networks. They were very organized and the cool thing about this series is you slowly start to see that a lot of these settlers and coming over start to adapt and use a lot of the methods that the native people did.”

Another notable “different” story is the sheer might and the extensive guerrilla-warfare skills the First Nations displayed.

“This was a military superpower in the heart of North America that terrified the French and the English and the Dutch alike,” said Johnson about early contact. “They were organized. They knew the land, they had thousands of warriors.”

A scene from the new APTN series Nations at War. The 13-part series, that premieres Sept. 6, focuses on how First Nations fought each other and Europeans.

That, of course, all changed later on thanks to disease, war fatalities and the constant increase of European settlers.

The series begins on the West Coast with a look at how the Haida, with its fierce navy, ruled the area. Other episodes include a look at Louis Riel’s rebel movement and what happened with the Vikings.

“Some people accuse us of glorifying violence, but it is antiwar. For a show called Nations at War it shows you that the violence more often than not was a failure of every other solution to the problem,” said Johnson. “Everyone was capable of bloodshed. Everyone was capable of peace and everyone was capable of civility and everyone was capable of diplomacy, and you get honour and courage on both sides.”

Hosted by David H. Lyle (Arrow, Arctic Air) the full series budget was only $1 million and had limited visual archival resources to work with.

TV needs more than talking heads and old paintings, and this series manages to pull that off thanks to computer-generated images and re-enactments.

“It wasn’t about resources, it was about being resourceful,” said co-producer Jason Friesen, a Metis who also directed some episodes and appears on camera as a Metis warrior.

An example of resourcefulness was finding an Indigenous bison rancher in Chase and using his two herds and him in the film.

“It was childish enthusiasm all the time,” said Johnson about story and planning meetings. “It was, ‘Oh, did you know about this? Did you know about that? We have to put it in the show.’ ”

With this subject matter at this time in this country it’s easy to see Nations at War as a political statement, but Johnson doesn’t agree with that. His desire is educate and to see the likes of Tecumseh and Pitikwahanapiwiyin, a.k.a. Poundmaker, become bigger parts of the discussion and become bigger names to schoolkids across the country.

“Being proud of Canada comes with acknowledging the horrible things that have been done and the promises that have been broken, whether you are political or not,” said Johnson. “I didn’t do this for any political reasons. I just thought these were cool stories that I wanted to tell. But it made me understand my own country so much better.

“Canada as a civilization is thousands of years old, not 150,” added Johnson. “That is amazing to me that I am part of the continuity of the country. You have to respect the true history of Canada period.”

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Some of the most popular players in Vancouver Whitecaps history will do battle against Hollywood North’s biggest stars in the Legends & Stars charity soccer match, Sept. 16, at B.C. Place to benefit B.C. Children’s Hospital.

On one of the side of the pitch, Jay DeMerit, the original captain for the MLS Whitecaps, will lead a team of alumni that includes fan favourites Y.P. Lee, David Chiumento, Ivor Evans, Steve Macdonald, and Alfredo Valente against a club chock full of actors working on big budget network TV series filmed in Vancouver.

British tough guy actor Ray Winstone will play a little footy against Whitecaps alumni.

Two young stars of the Netflix hit Riverdale, K.J. Apa (Archie Andrews) and Charles Melton (Reggie Mantle), will headline a Hollywood North team that also features veteran Brit actors Robert Carlyle, who played the psychopathic Begbie in Trainspotting, and Ray Winstone, the gruff scene-stealer known for his gangster roles in The Departed and Sexy Beast. 

Carlyle stars as Rumpelstiltskin on the Vancouver-shot fantasy series Once Upon a Time, while Winstone stars in the locally produced crime/drama Ice.

Tickets are $5, with all proceeds donated to B.C. Children’s Hospital.

The hour-long game will take place at 1:45 p.m., just prior to the MLS match between the Whitecaps and Columbus Crew, which kicks off at 4 p.m. To attend the Legends & Stars showdown, fans must also have a ticket for the MLS match.

FULL ROSTERS:

Whitecaps Alumni: Carlos Batista, Cam Bowman, Steven Brown, Stephen Burns, John Catliff, Gordon Chin, Davide Chiumiento, Carlo Corazzin, Chris Craveiro, Craig Dalrymple, Nick Dasovic, Jay DeMerit, Srdjan Djekanovic, Michael Dodd, Paul Dolan, Robert Earnshaw, Ivor Evans, Nick Gilbert, Kevin Harmse, Oliver Heald, Lindsay Henderson, Keith Izatt, Jay Johnstone, Jason Jordan, Diaz Kambere, Tiarnan King, Garret Kusch, Young-Pyo Lee, Stefan Leslie, Steve Macdonald, Scott Macey, Steve McCauley, Erin McNulty, Rob Merkl, Steve Millar, Dave Morris, Doug Muirhead, Shaun Pejic, Kurt Powell, Didar Sandhu, Joe Scigliano, Sipho Sibiya, Jeff Skinner, Justin Thompson, Guido Titotto, Paulo Valdez, Alfredo Valente, Neil Wilkinson.

Team Hollywood North: KJ Apa (Archie/Once Upon a Time), Jean-Luc Bilodeau (Ben/Baby Daddy), Robert Carlyle (Rumpelstiltskin/Once Upon a Time, Begbie/Trainspotting, Gaz/The Full Monty), Michael Coleman (Happy/Once Upon a Time), Casey Cott (Kyle/Riverdale), Henry Cusick (Marcus/The 100, Desmond/Lost), Colin O’Donoghue (Captain Hook/Once Upon A Time), Colin Ferguson (William/Haven, Tripp/The Vampire Diaries, Jack/Eureka), Chris Gauthier (Smee/Once Upon a Time, Phil/A Series of Unfortunate Events, Toyman/Smallville), Georgina Haig (Elsa/Once Upon A Time, Piper/Limitless), Richard Harmon (John/The 100), Tyler Johnston (Stewart/Letterkenny, Samandriel/Supernatural), Sean Maguire (Robin Hood/Once Upon a Time), Charles Melton (Reggie Mantle/Riverdale), Sibongile Mlambo (Tamora Monroe/Teen Wolf), Bob Morley (Bellamy Blake/The 100), Tasya Teles (Echo/The 100), Andrew West (Henry Mills/Once Upon a Time, Gareth/The Walking Dead), Ray Winstone (Cam Rose/Ice). 

A star on the Vancouver-filmed CW series Riverdale has called out a local woman for an awkward fan interaction.

A Twitter user, whose account has since been set to private, tweeted earlier this week about an interaction that took place over the weekend when she encountered stars Lili Reinhart and Cole Sprouse in downtown Vancouver. Reinhart plays Betty Cooper and Sprouse stars as Jughead Jones on the popular CW teen drama.

“So guys listen to this I’m so annoyed,” the woman said in a screen-grabbed tweet. “I went out in downtown Vancouver tonight and I bumped into the cast of Riverdale. I love that show and I was kinda drunk so I kinda approached @colesprouse in a friendly way as if I knew him.”

The woman alleged Sprouse was “rude” to her; she then called downtown Vancouver “trash” and the show’s cast “disgusting and rude.”

“If you’re a celebrity, you gotta deal with the consequences. You know you’re signing up for the public to talk to you, otherwise just quit,” she tweeted. “Don’t become a celebrity if you want privacy, you get paid for having fans so respect them or be nice at least.”

Reinhart fired back on Monday and gave a different account of how the interaction unfolded.

“You do not have the right to approach STRANGERS and throw your arms around us like you know us. What you did was not cool and inappropriate,” she stated in a series of tweets.

“Cole’s response to you was, ‘Do I know you?’ After you rudely invaded our space and got in our faces. It’s easy to make us look like the bad guys because you think there’s no chance in hell we would ever call you out on it. Here you go,” she said, finishing with a smiley-face emoji.

Earlier this summer, Sprouse was caught up in another fan interaction gone awry when a downtown Vancouver busker refused to stop playing while the show was filming nearby. Sprouse went over to the busker to ask her to stop, prompting the musician to fire back.

When a producer offered to pay her, the musician again refused. The interaction was caught on video and shared online, eliciting a variety of reactions.

The second season of the show, which is filmed in and around Vancouver, premiers on the CW Oct. 11.

sip@postmedia.com
twitter.com/stephanie_ip

If you want to start a lively (read: heated) conversation in Vancouver, you’ll likely need to touch on only one topic: real estate.

The city’s housing market has long been a hot-button talking point — to put it mildly — and the intensity has only increased in recent years thanks to skyrocketing prices and a seemingly limited supply. Affordability and availability can easily be classified as buzz words when it comes to living in the Lower Mainland.

With this omnipresent dialogue in mind, it will come as no surprise to hear the region’s real-estate roller-coaster is being thrust further into the spotlight thanks to a new television show. 

Dubbed Worst to First, the Vancouver-based HGTV series, follows 10 local families as they search for their dream homes in a very unlikely place: among the worst wrecks on the block. 

“The real estate market is obviously such a hot topic in Vancouver. And if you compare it to the real estate market in other parts of the world, or even North America, we’re definitely set apart, completely,” Sebastian Sevallo, one half of the contractor team that stars in the show. “It’s really cool for us to take a young family and say, OK, you guys want to live in Lynn Valley? We’ll find you a home in Lynn Valley and we’ll renovate that home.”  

As one would expect when considering a purchase-renovation scenario in Metro Vancouver, the families that signed on to the show were all working with budgets of more than $1 million. And the cheapest house purchased during the show rang in at around $800,000-$900,000, according to Sevallo. 

“It’s interesting, on the one hand, because these houses that we’re buying are the worst houses on the block, but they’re in the millions — not all of them — but most of them are up there in value,” Sevallo says. “To buy a home like that, and then invest $100,000 to $200,000 into these homes, whereas that renovation budget could buy you an entire home in other areas, it’s such the upper echelon of price.

“It’s really interesting to see where these families can fit in.”

Despite the six figure-plus price tags, the homes they helped the families choose were riddled with issues such as rot and improper construction in varying stages. 

“It’s really easy to think you’re in good shape, like sweet, this is going to be in-and-out,” Mickey Fabbiano, Sevallo’s co-star says. “And then all of a sudden you open up a wall and realize, oh boy, we’ve bit off more than we can chew on this one. But that’s the reality of home renovations.”

Fabbiano, 31, and Sevallo, 32, say their first priority during the show is to sit the families down and sort out the main objectives. 

“We give it to them straight,” Fabbiano says. “We say: ‘This is how much the house is. This is how much you’ll have left in your budget. This is what we can fit into it.’ 

“The first thing we asked the couples was what their objectives were. They have a wish list together and then a wish list separate. They may want an open concept, hardware floors and a fireplace together, but then the wife might want a wine fridge and the husband might want a garage or workshop. We establish what they want, establish how much money they have and we go from there.”

Fabbiano and Sevallo each come up with a design plan for the home in order to give the new owners “some choices” in terms of layout and design. And the timeline for each renovation was six-to-eight weeks. 

“It helps them envision the overall project,” Fabbiano says. “That can be a very difficult thing. You see a blank canvas and some people see a masterpiece, while other people see only a blank canvas.” 

Aside from showcasing their chops as contractors, Sevallo and Fabbiano, say the entire process was personal. 

“As born-and-raised Vancouverites, we know this city,” Fabbiano says. “And, as contractors, we know the real estate market and we know what can be done within a certain amount of money and time. 

“There’s nothing worse, and we’ve seen it year after year, growing up in communities with friends and then seeing them pushed out and having to move away. They get to a point where, they want to buy the house and they can no longer live in an apartment, and all of a sudden, all these friends that you grew up with have moved away. We want to try to keep communities together.”

Through the show, they hope viewer take-away is that it’s not impossible to live where you want to live. 

“Anything’s possible. If it’s important enough to you, there are ways around it. You can put that variable back into the equation,” Fabbiano says. “It’s not: Vancouver is too ridiculous, we’re out. It’s: well, let’s see what we have here to work with, and possibly get you where you want to be. 

“We want to people to know that, yes, this is an expensive city to live in, but if it’s important enough to you, anything is possible.” 

While the drama and emotions of home renovations are at the centre of the show, the duo’s so-called “bromance” is sure to be a secondary highlight for viewers. 

Chatting with the pair before the show aired on Sept. 4, it’s easy to see Sevallo and Fabbiano share a close (and funny) friendship. It’s a relationship that, some could say, was meant to be. 

“Basically, we met through our siblings,” Fabbiano explains of their relationship before the show. “His brother married my sister.”

Their respective siblings kept recommending the two meet as they thought they would get along. After more than a year of cajoling, they agreed to meet.  

“If you asked me if I had of believed in true love before, I probably would have said no,” Fabbiano jokes.  

“In a bromance way,” Sevallo interjects with a laugh. Safe to say, their families were correct as Fabbiano and Sevallo became fast friends. 

Worst to First airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV. 

Aharris@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/Aleesha_H

5 TIPS TO HELP YOU FIND THE RIGHT CONTRACTOR 

Finding a contractor you trust can be tricky. 

With this in mind, we asked Vancouver-based home pros Mickey Fabbiano and Sebastian Sevallo to dole out some tips and tricks for those who are searching for the right person (i.e.: someone they can trust) to put some work into their living space. 

“When you’re looking for a contractor, it’s a relationship, as well,” Sevallo says. “You want someone who is going to fulfil your desires and your demands.” 

Here’s what they came up with. 

Check references: Ask for contact information of past clients to get the true story of their experience with the contractor. 

See their past work: Obtain a list of addresses for past work sites and spend an afternoon checking them out in order to see their work and how it’s holding up

Contact third-party associations: Contact the Better Business Bureau to check on a contractor’s rating or to see past customer reviews. 

Get the right person for the job: Check licensing and qualifications to make sure you’re picking an experienced tradesperson for each job. 

If it’s too good to be true, it probably is: If timeline promises seem shockingly short, or quotes come in surprisingly low, Sevallo and Fabbiano say it may because you’re not dealing with a professional who knows how to get the job done right — without rushing or cutting any corners. 

The visual effects, or VFX, and animation business in British Columbia generates a hefty portion of the province’s $2.4 billion film and TV production industry, an area that is prime for pursuing a career in.

“The number of digital animation and effects projects I can share with you is that as of our year end of March 31, 2017, it’s up 33 per cent from 2016, and anecdotally, the average age is 28 years or so with a salary in the $60,000-plus range with ample opportunity for growth,” said Prem Gill, the Chief Executive Officer of Creative B.C., the government body involved in the promotion and development of creative industries in the province.

Creative B.C. CEO Prem Gill.

“What’s interesting is how many people you don’t consider that are also employed such as engineers, math students and others who often use this business as a jumping off point. John Lutz of Electronic Arts often says that digital entertainment, video games, animation and so on are often a launch pad for other tech careers and start ups.”

BCIT’s Faculty of Digital Arts program head Ramin Shadmir certainly fits that description. Shadmir went from Electronic Arts to forming his own startup, Port Moody-based Ace 3D FX, and then into teaching.

These days, Shadmir is mostly focused on training future prospects in 3D modelling, art and animation. The 15-month program takes in two sessions of 25 students each. Standard tuition is $23, 350 (domestic) and $34,250 (international), which is considerably less than a university degree that might earn you significantly less afterwards.

“I don’t know about the other schools, but we vet our students before they come in to be sure that they are really talented and that when they come out of the program they are going to be employed,” Shadmir said. “That’s why we are constantly keeping our program up to date and making major changes to introduce new components by working closely with industry partners at places like Sony Imageworks.”

Keeping up with technology and trends in the industry is key to faculties from BCIT and Capilano University to SFU’s SIAT Campus or the Vancouver Film School. It’s no easy task for educational institutions or industry players to stay ahead of the curve. The truth is that schools can’t train enough workers with industry requirements, so the studios develop their own internships and in-house training programs.

“It’s one of the fastest growing industries I can think of as every day some company is developing or testing a new tool and, if industry adopts it, we need to know about it,” said Shadmir. “We don’t expect students coming in to know all the applications, we teach that, but what matters is you artistic drive and commitment.”

Of late, finding enough people with that get up and go and the skills needed to put it together is challenging the industry. Gill notes that there is a considerable influx of international experts relocating to Vancouver and then discovering that there is enough consistent work to keep them here permanently. 

“They may come over for one job, but then they stay, settle and have families,” she said. “The global demand for visual effects and animation is huge and, while Game of Thrones or Star Wars may not be shot here, a lot of that kind of work on those programs is. Just next week, the new My Little Pony movie is premiering in New York and it was done here at DHX.”

Mark Breakspear of Sony Pictures Imageworks breaks it down to the basics: “I look for people who have a good eye and, frankly, if someone comes in with that looking for a job in an area that is fully staffed, I may hire them anyways because true talent can always be trained.”

And once you are trained, be prepared for a roller-coaster ride in terms of hours worked and deadlines. Bringing a project from start to finish is a nail biting endurance game where 80-hour workweeks aren’t uncommon at certain key junctures and you might be doing some of that work in the wee hours.

Inspiration comes at curious times and there is no way to schedule it. Such is the way of Hollywood North’s busy creative industry sector.

sderdyn@postmedia.com

Imagine the latest box office hit, or your favourite action movie, without special effects.

Taron Egerton would be just another nerd in a fancy suit in Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Tom Holland just a skinny kid in a Halloween costume in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Not a pretty picture.

The animation and visual effects (VFX) industry is booming, and it’s growth is more evident in British Columbia than anywhere else.

One of the engines of the massive Hollywood North VFX industry turns 25 this year. Sony Pictures Imageworks is an Academy Award-winning unit of Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, which made moved its headquarters to Vancouver in 2014, Operating out of a massive 6,900 square-metre facility on Granville Street, Imageworks has 80 per cent of its international workforce based in Vancouver.

Imageworks is unique as one of the only studio-run visual effects and animation divisions. While it is a Sony operation producing in-house films such as The Emoji Movie, Imageworks’ 800-plus employees also produce considerable content for most major studios.

“When it began in 1992, the original idea was for a small group of a dozen or so to get some equipment and experiment to see what value could be added to Sony movies by an in-house unit working in visual effects and animation,” said Senior VFX supervisor Jerome Chen, who has been around for the full quarter century run.

“Over time, Imageworks became well established as a major effects source and works with all the major studios. I’m not sure any of us foresaw the industry expanding with larger and larger requirements for movies to the degree it has, but the tools and technology just continue to improve and do things at ludicrously faster and faster rates.”

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Gene, voiced by T.J. Miller, centre, in Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation’s The Emoji Movie.

A recent list of the past few year’s clients includes Warner Bros (Suicide Squad, Storks), Disney (Alice Through the Looking Glass), Marvel (Guardians of the Galaxy), Columbia Pictures (The Angry Birds Movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming, The Emoji Movie) and the just-released Kingsman: The Golden Circle for Fox.

Randy Lake, President of Studio Operations & Imageworks, says that relocating to Vancouver six years ago was key to the success of the unit, which had been through some very rough spots in its history.

“We were bullish on Vancouver when we moved here six years ago, and it has been critical to the very dramatic growth and level of success we have experienced,” says Lake. “Part of that was the existing talent base in the market that we could build off of but also because the city has been identified by the entire VFX industry and a good portion of the animation business as an attractive place to put a significant amount of their workforce. This means that it is an attractive location for employees because they know that there is going to be steady work, where you can find work at another facility once one project winds down.”

Early this week there were 23 Vancouver job postings at imageworks.com alone. On any given day, there are 100+ jobs posted in VFX, animation and other tech sector jobs involving film, TV and gaming in the province.

Three time Emmy Award nominee and VFX supervisor and artist Mark Breakspear has been based in Vancouver since moving here from the UK in 2001. One of Sony Pictures Imageworks most experienced supervisors, Breakspear says that all sorts of talents are required to keep the studio producing the cutting edge work seen if films ranging from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone to the Kingsmen: Golden Circle. 

“We’re always looking for programmers and coders to come and write the software that doesn’t even exist yet, to do things that nobody has every dreamed of doing,” said Breakspear. “It’s just showing no sign of slowing down. And last year around this time, I did a back of a napkin kind of calculation of where the industry was going and I calculated about 1,900 new jobs would be created with just the work coming in, including all the existing people still continuing working.”

So business is good. But what keeps it going is movies that require cutting edge applications to keep audiences piling into theatres. All three senior staffers agree that until you have worked in the business, it’s really very hard to grasp just how much work goes into just a few minutes of action. Contemporary filmmaking of the sort Sony Pictures Imageworks specializes in does not happen fast. The robotic pit bulls you’ll see in Kingsman: The Golden Circle were quite challenging to create, says Randy Lake.

“It was an interesting and fun project and our first time working with Matthew Vaughn (Kingsmen: The Secret Service, Kick-Ass) and it has some crazy action sequences, cool work we did with robotic pit bulls, a robotic arm and a fembot that looks extraordinarily like Claudia Schiffer, who just happens to be Matthew’s wife,” said Lake. “We developed a new software technology called Sprout for building plant environments really quickly and a lot of the shoot involved a jungle environment which we could build quite fast and get in front of the director.”

Taron Egerton in Kingsman: The Golden Circle.

Breakspear says that developing new ways to create environments and effects that are all the more realistic is key to avoiding the intense audience scrutiny which accompanies its demand for ever more fanciful filmmaking.

“With visual effects, I go off filming somewhere with a director on set and then come back and bring that footage with me and we then add in environments, locations, and so on,” said Breakspear. “The just finished Kingsman looks spectacular, but if you saw the before and after you could be possibly confused. While we didn’t build the actors or some of the props, we do create some pretty amazing things on top of that.”

Lake says one of the best aspects of the global nature of the film business is directors pushing to find the audience something that it has never seen before to get it to come to the theatre. This impetus means that Sony Pictures Imageworks and the visual effects and animation industries in B.C. can look forward to the next 25 years.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

twitter.com/stuartderdeyn

SEAL Team

Sept. 27, 9 p.m. | Global & CBS

Like an old Charles Atlas 97-pound weakling advertisement, A.J. Buckley felt a good way to broaden his future was to broaden his chest.

He was right.

The former White Rock resident embarked on a tough training regime and transformed his body and in turn changed the opinion of casting agents.

That pumped-up plan led to being cast as one of the co-stars in the much buzzed about new CBS series SEAL Team starring David Boreanaz and premiering on Sept. 27.

Buckley, 40, plays Sonny, a volatile member of the elite US fighting squad.

“My character is the wild card of the group. He’s got a lot of anger,” said Buckley during a break in shooting in Los Angeles recently. “They call him the knuckle dragger. He’s the big guns. He carries all the big weapons. I blow shit up.”

Buckley, who moved to White Rock from Dublin, Ireland, at the age of six has a strong TV resume including plenty of guest starring roles and most notably his recurring roll of Adam Ross the nerdy lab rat on CSI: NY.

But as can be the case in Hollywood, success in one role can lead to typecasting and in turn to the life of a one-trick pony. Something Buckley faced first hand when he went into read for roles in various franchise action movies. After a few cracks at it he discovered there was a theme to the feedback he was getting.

They liked his reading but casting agents felt he physically wasn’t their guy and they didn’t have the benefit of time to bulk him up.

“I remember hearing that and thinking, I can get there. If I’m the right guy I just need the time. So I decided the time in between jobs I would just make it my job to become that guy,” said Buckley, who went into full body transformation mode. He hired a trainer, nutritionists and did twice a day workouts. The end result after five years of this was an extra 35 pounds of muscle.

“Once I came in casting was like ‘oh my God,'” said Buckley about the response to the new and improved him. 

So now Buckley says he has to keep his eye on the prize or rather the protein and continue his strict regime in order to stay big and strong.

“If I stop working out or eating healthily I instantly turn into a potato, it just happens” said Buckley, who moved to L.A. in 1997. 

Right now SEAL Team has a 13-episode order from CBS. Buckley of course is hoping for a hit but in the meantime he admits to being happy that landing this role has allowed him to tick off a character from his types of guys he wants to play list.

For the record that list includes detectives, FBI guys, and anything resembling his favourite character ever — Bruce Willis’s Diehard icon John McClane.

As for the SEAL Team experience, Buckley went in bulked up and fit but he admits turning in a lab coat and microscope for body armour and a big ass gun was a bit of an adjustment. But it’s Hollywood so actors get a lot of support and help from actual experts, in this case real Navy SEALs.

“Our technical advisers on this show have been part of it since day one. Some of the guys on the show are the country’s biggest heroes,” said Buckley. “They are all Tier 1 operators. Tier 1 is basically the best of the best — the best of SEALs, the best of the Rangers, the best of Special Forces.”

Buckley is quick to point out that having the experts on hand has been a massive help for a Canadian boy playing an American military machine. He says that his time spent with the soldiers has led to the utmost respect for the work and the sacrifice these elite fighters make.

Oh, and it makes for some cool conversations in between shots. For instance, what about SEAL Team Six and its takedown of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011.

“They were given a 70 per cent chance of being shot down on that mission. A 70 per cent chance,” said Buckley. “Imagine if you were told ‘OK you are going to go to work today but you have a 70 per cent chance you are going to get killed.’ Would you go to work? No. But these guys did. Every time people see military people in the airport they should stop and say thank you.”

While the new TV series focuses on a group of special ops guys and their missions, it is still at heart a workplace drama. Buckley said the scripts take the characters outside the battlefield and look at the human moments that happen during insanely crazy circumstances. How do soldiers and their families and friends deal with that?

“It’s get in, get out, get home,” said Buckley about the SEAL credo. A credo that sees them 72 hours later back on US soil stuck in traffic, driving kids to school and explaining to their loved ones why they are so distant.

This new gig is just one part of Buckley’s future plans. He has been pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities for years and to date has had some solid successes.

He is a co-owner of a soon to be expanding Florida-based restaurant chain (Pipeline Poke House), co-owner and founder of decade old Louisiana — based entertainment publication called Scene and his latest business move — a diaper bag company — is doing well.

The latter came about after a major poop incident involving his then seven-month-old daughter.

“As I took her out of the car seat she had one of those magical poops that go up the back. I don’t know how she did it but I rushed to the restaurant bathroom. As a first time dad I didn’t know there wasn’t a changing table,” said Buckley, who as it turned out forgot his own portable changing pad.

“So I had to take my shirt off and put it on the floor and change her on this dirty floor,” added Buckley. “I thought I failed as a father.”

At home later and still smarting from the poopy problem Buckley hit Google and looked for a better diaper bag.

The diaper bags that were tailored towards the more masculine tastes he said were all lacking in function. So in his own eureka or maybe pee-ewe moment he decided to step up and design a bag he would like to carry and that would function as a changing table.

Buckley drew up some ideas and showed them to his business partner and fellow actor Artie Baxter. The drawings were lacking so Baxter said back to the drawing board or better yet find someone who knows how to use a drawing board.

Actors AJ Buckley (l) and Arthur Baxter have extended their business partnership to include a unique line of diaper bags designed to help dads out.

So a designer was engaged and the bags moved forward. Twelve prototypes later and you can purchase a Bear or Willow bag (named after Baxter and Buckley’s kids respectively) at papercliplife.com for $244. Buckley said two more bags will be available in early 2018.

“The genesis of the bag was developed from real R&D of being a full time dad,” said Buckley. “We had no idea it was going to take off like it did and it really blew up overnight.  It’s been awesome. For us every month we have increased 30 to 40 per cent since the end of January 2017.”

How many have they sold?

“A lot,” is all Buckley would say.

Lucky for Buckley his regular gig comes with a lot of on the job downtime. So while lights are changed and scenes are blocked Buckley puts that time to use.

“I don’t have any down time on a set. I’m either working out, eating protein, watching SEAL videos or helping run companies,” said Buckley, who admits some earlier chances he took ended up poorly but did produce solid lessons he could take forward.

“I love the idea of creating something,” said Buckley. “Good ideas and good people usually work. I wouldn’t be the business person I am now if I didn’t take chances back then and learn.”

So with a new Hollywood persona and a burgeoning business where does the former St. Thomas More Collegiate school student who says he barely graduated see himself in five years?

“Hopefully on another big set with a cigar in my mouth and a gun in my hand.”

dgee@postmedia.com

twitter.com/dana_gee

Burnaby actor Andrea Bang is making noise.

She has a co-starring role in the Vancouver International Film Festival flick Public, and Kim’s Convenience — the hit CBC sitcom she plays Janet in — is about to return for a new season starting on Tuesday, Sept. 26.

Bang and cast mates were in Vancouver recently for a Kim’s Convenience red carpet and special screening. We caught up with the busy Bang — who caught the acting bug in high school during a production of Bye Bye Birdie — and asked her a few questions.

Q: When did you know acting was what you wanted to focus on and become your career?

A: For the longest time, I kept my interest in acting a secret. Minus a select few, no one really knew. I played around with so many different non-acting career paths. Finally, one day I said ‘screw it.’ I got an agent and a job that allowed me to audition — and the rest is history. 

Q: What do you remember most from your first professional job? 

A: If you’re asking first professional job in general, it was working at a Lotto Centre. I looked like I was 12 so I remember being asked if I was old enough to work there ALL THE TIME. My first paid acting gig was a web series called Sunnyhearts Community Centre. I just remember being so nervous because I was a fan of those guys. Also, that the clothing options I brought were terrible.

Q: You and your sister Diana are doing well these days. You have this series and the film Public Schooled and she is in the film Entanglement. Have you ever been up for the same job? 

A: We used to job-share. Does that count? I don’t think we were ever really up for the same job because she got into the biz before me and so by the time I started auditioning, we were going out for different things. We would love to do something together! 

Q: Do you help each other out by preparing together, running lines?

Totally! I help her with self-tapes and vice versa. Whenever we can, we try to help each other out. 

Q: Did you both start acting at the same time? Or did one get the other interested?

A: I think we were both interested in acting since we were kids, but it wasn’t until she started auditioning that I thought this acting thing was an actual possibility. Growing up, I never really saw anyone like me on TV/movies and didn’t know any actors, etc., so I thought it was impossible; something that only human unicorns could do. So when my sister was actually doing it, it was almost like I had permission to pursue this dream.

Q: What do your parents think about having two actors in the family?

A: I don’t think it was easy at first because acting has lots of ups and downs and no one wants to see their loved ones go through that, especially when you yourself moved to a new country in order to prevent your kids from having to go through that kind of instability. But my mom is our number 1 fan. She couldn’t be prouder. Everyone is crazy supportive of us.

Q: Growing up in Burnaby what did you do as a teen on a Saturday? 

A: What I remember most is going for midnight bike rides and hanging out on playgrounds while eating tons of junk food. I felt so rebellious but I really wasn’t — ha ha. I would also go on massive sewing binges. So, yeah, I was pretty cool!

Q: Looking back on favourite movies what character do you wish you could have played and why?

A: If you asked teenage Andrea, she would have said ‘Gidget’ because it would’ve just been plain ole’ fun to play her. A surfer girl who speaks her mind in the ’50s/’60s, what’s not to love? Also, Buffy the Vampire Slayer from either the movie or TV version. She’s so badass. I don’t think people look at me and automatically think ‘that girl can fight a gang of scary vampires’ so it’d be really cool to defy expectations. Plus, playing in a world of magic and mystical creatures? Yes please!

Q: What’s it like to be on a hit sitcom?

A: Awesome and terrifying. One of the things I love most about it is getting to make it with my TV family. The cast and crew are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet! 

Q: What does your family think of Kim’s Convenience? Do they wade in with ideas?

A: My family loves Kim’s. When the first season aired, we’d get together every Tuesday night to watch it. My mom loves getting the chance to see me act and is super proud. In terms of ideas, I think lots of people wade in with ideas, which shows how invested they are in the characters and that’s awesome.  

Burnaby native Andrea Bang seen here on the set of the hit TV show Kim’s Convenience. Bang plays Janet on the CBC sitcom.

Q: What is it about your heritage that makes you the happiest?

A: Everything! Is that a cop out? I’m able to be both Korean and Canadian. I don’t have to choose. Oh, and can’t forget the food. 

Q: What kind of impact do you think the show has had? 

A: I think the impact can best be seen through the awesomely wonderful fans. Kim’s Convenience is about a Korean-Canadian family but we constantly have people from all different backgrounds coming up to us to say how Kim’s remind them of their own family. It’s been said before, but a lot of us in the cast grew up not seeing ourselves portrayed in the media so now that we get to add to that very conversation with characters that can be your friend, family, crush or neighbour, regardless of colour, is amazing.

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K.J. Apa, who stars on the Vancouver-filmed CW series Riverdale, reportedly fell asleep at the wheel and was involved in a late-night car-accident last week while driving home after 16-hours on set.

Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the accident involving the 20-year-old New Zealand actor has now sparked safety concerns and demands for better safety precautions for the cast and crew.

According to reports, Apa – who stars as Archie Andrews – had worked 16 hours on a set somewhere in the Fraser Valley and was driving himself back to his Vancouver hotel after midnight when he fell asleep during the 45-minute trip.

“He was taken to a local hospital for observation and later discharged without serious injuries. His car, however, didn’t fare as well. The passenger side was apparently destroyed after striking a light pole, and the vehicle was rendered inoperable,” according to THR.

There was also some suggestion that actor Cole Sprouse, who stars as Jughead Jones, was supposed to be in Apa’s car that night of the accident but that he changed his mind at the last minute. Sprouse, who is among the more visible stars of the show off-set, has spoken up to production heads to ask that transportation be provided for cast members who work later in the evenings and overnight.

Related

• Riverdale star Lili Reinhart calls out Vancouver fan over awkward interaction
• Video: Riverdale star Cole Sprouse and busker clash in downtown Vancouver

Production for the dark and gritty teen drama frequently takes place late at night in the Fraser Valley, while many of the show’s young stars stay in downtown Vancouver while in town for filming. This week, production has been set up at Gabby’s Country Cabaret in Langley; the bar serves as Riverdale’s Whyte Wyrm, the hangout of choice for the Southside Serpents.

Sources also told the Reporter that a “call between representatives for the actors and Warner Bros. executives” had been set up for Friday, though the studio would not confirm the meeting.

The second season of the breakout show premiers on the CW on Oct. 11, and will release weekly episodes to Netflix beginning on Oct. 12.

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Riverdale star Cole Sprouse has reportedly spoken up to ask production heads to provide transportation for cast members filming late at night.

Keep the cameras rolling.

Film production in B.C. is at a “all-time high,” according to the latest numbers released by the provincial government on Saturday.

For the 2016-17 fiscal year, film and TV productions spent an estimated $2.6 billion in B.C., an all-time high. That figure represents an increase of more than 35 per cent compared to the previous fiscal year, when $1.9 billion was spent.

A total of 338 tax-credit certifications were also approved by Creative B.C. this year, compared to just 297 tax-credit certifications last year.

“B.C.’s motion picture industry has earned a global reputation for excellence in the screen-based industries,” said Prem Gill, chief executive officer of Creative BC.

Locally filmed series The Drive is set to premier its second season at the Rio Theatre next month.

The award-winning series explores the life and times of a group of roommates and how they deal with delayed adulthood, life on Commercial Drive, and each other. The second season picks up following the death of a patriarch and forces the group to unite and face their relationships and challenges head-on.

The series also showcases Vancouver’s beloved Commercial Drive neighbourhood, with scenes taking place inside some of the street’s most popular establishments.

“I feel like this time around, we knew what we were in for,” said executive producer Nick Hunnings in a June 2017 interview after production wrapped.

“We tried to raise the bar for everything, in terms of our writing, the characters and where we wanted to go.”

The East Van Entertainment team began developing the script in 2010 before later turning to an Indiegogo campaign in 2013 to raise funds for the first season’s production. A Telus Optik Local grant helped to get the project off the ground, and allowed for a 2015 premier via Telus Optik TV’s video-on-demand platform.

Following in the tradition of the first season, local musicians and artists have also stepped up to share their work within the show. Among those contributing to the show are David Vertesi of Hey Ocean!, experimental performer PrOphecy Sun, and Juno Award winner Dan Mangan.

Jennifer Cheon earned a Leo Award for Best Actress in a Web Series for her turn as Gina. Cheon has also been seen on Van Helsing, Arrow, and Minority Report.

“It was a wonderful experience playing a character that is brave enough to take some risks in order to find answers, even if it means looking like the villain,” she said.

Other awards snagged by the show include Best Ensemble Performance at TO Web Fest and Best Director at Vancouver Web Fest.

All seven episodes of the show’s second season will screen at the Rio Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 15. Tickets for the evening are $13 in advance or $15 at the door and can be purchased at riotheatretickets.ca.

The project was funded through Telus Storyhive and will be available on TELUS Optik TV On Demand.

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Vancouver’s Atomic Cartoons has optioned the rights to bring author Max Brallier’s New York Times bestselling book series The Last Kids on Earth to television. Brallier is writing the new animated series and co-executive producing with Atomic head Jennifer McCarron and Matthew Berkowitz.

The third instalment in the series, titled Last Kids on Earth and the Nightmare King, was released Sept. 26 on Penguin Random House imprint Viking.

Max Brallier is the author of the bestselling The Last Kids on Earth book series. 2017 [PNG Merlin Archive]
PNG

The Last Kids on Earth series is another feather in the cap of Atomic Cartoons (Thunderbird Entertainment’s animation division) that produces the hit Netflix series Beat Bugs at its Vancouver location. That show repurposes the Beatles catalogue in a family friendly storyline with performers such as Eddie Vedder and Sia singing Fab Four classics. 

Thunderbird is also behind the hit Canadian comedy series Kim’s Convenience which airs season two on CBC on Sept. 26. The company has big buzz building around its upcoming Blade Runner 2049 film starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford.

Atomic is already working on The Last Kids on Earth, so expect to see the show coming to a screen near you in 2018.

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VIFF Creator Talk with Ane Crabtree

Oct. 2; 6:30 p.m. | Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St.)

Tickets and info: $25; viff.org

You’d be forgiven for assuming a longtime Hollywood costume designer would be “over” the idea of an encounter with a celebrity, director, or the like ending in an epic fangirl episode. 

But Ane Crabtree isn’t immune to the idea — at least not privately. 

So, who are the stars that cause Crabtree, whose past projects have included The Sopranos, Masters of Sex, Westworld and more, to lose her cool? Well, they aren’t exactly ones you’d expect. 

“Margaret Atwood and Daniel Wilson are part of the reason why I’m sitting in this chair today, doing The Handmaid’s Tale season two. And, really, responsible for a lot of my success,” Crabtree admits. “I was educated by their films and novels.”

Suffice to say, Atwood’s ability to create — and Wilson’s to recreate on film — the frightening dystopian reality where select women are forced to bear children for the elite that is at the centre of The Handmaid’s Tale, helped to rattle Crabtree’s view of women’s roles in society. Speaking from the Toronto set of the hit Hulu drama, Crabtree detailed the depths of the duo’s impact on her career — and her life. 

“I’m 53, and I saw The Handmaid’s Tale when it first came out in the theatres (in 1990). I was a young 20-something and … I remember it was quite controversial,” she explains of the movie, which was produced by Wilson and starred Natasha Richardson. “I knew, at that moment, that my life was forever impacted as a woman asking questions about the future of women.”

Shortly after watching the film, Crabtree found herself a copy of Atwood’s novel. Needless to say, she found it just as jarring as the film adaptation. And it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time in her life. 

“(It) was quite a big moment because I was actually working in fashion — in a very specific world — and I was really trying very hard to understand how to get into film,” she explains. “I moved to New York in 1985 … and then I saw the film in 1990. That was a hugely instrumental time that made me question what I was doing in the fashion world. I wanted to have a bigger voice. And I wanted to represent other women that you do not see in the fashion world, even to this day.

“I wanted to represent brown-skinned people, black people. Film was a way to do that.”  

Crabtree says The Handmaid’s Tale helped give her the push she had been looking for. 

Ofglen (Alexis Bledel) and Offred (Elisabeth Moss), are shown in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Fast forward, oh, about 27 years, and Crabtree admits she never could have imagined she would get the opportunity to put her own spin on the story. 

“It’s so personal for me to do a good job,” she explains of her role as lead costume designer on the Emmy Award-winning show. “On a million levels — it’s unfolding in a different way every day: personally, emotionally, psychologically, politically. I feel a huge sense of responsibility, not just to the elders who made the film, but to women in the world to get it right.” 

So, how did she get the costumes “right”? 

“The book influenced me there, wholly. I only changed one thing, which was the Econo women and men in grey as opposed to multicolours,” she admits of the costume colours. 

Sketches from The Handmaid’s Tale costumer Ane Crabtree.

But while she knew which colours to choose, in a broad sense, she initially struggled with navigating the subtle nuances that each shade of a specific hue could have. 

“It has to be emotional,” she says of the colours. “It has to creep into your consciousness. It can’t hit you over the head, or it would be so boring — this giant swath of red hitting you over the head constantly.

“It would have no impact.”

Her formative years in New York City, as well as her formal education in art and art history helped her with that.

“If you grow up as an adult, if your education is in New York, and you’re not from there, you’re quite taken by a concrete world. Colour really shows up,” she explains.

But it was perhaps the one thing Crabtree says she does the worst that helped her when she was planning the “visual poetry” that would become regarded as some of the best work she’s done to date. 

“The thing that I don’t know how to do, at all, is music — and yet I insist on playing the cello badly, because it really moves me,” she says with a laugh. “It has been the way in to this work specifically, because it’s so poignant, and so stirring, emotion-wise.”

When she encountered a moment of creator’s block during preparation for season two, she turned to cello-heavy music — specifically the remix of “This Bitter Earth” by Dinah Washington and Max Richter — to renew her inspiration. 

After that, everything clicked. And with the exact colours nailed down, Crabtree then turned her attention to fabric.

“It’s a very thin, floaty — but at the same time heavy. We did that on purpose,” she says of the rayon textile of the handmaids’ cloaks. “If you find the right fabric that can evoke that onscreen, but also on the body, they can feel that.” To do that, Crabtree added extra panels to the dresses in order to make them “flow.” 

When Crabtree first met the show’s star and executive producer, Elizabeth Moss, in a hotel room with the final five dress options, she recalls she made the actress get moving — literally.   

“I immediately made her put them on and walk around, set to music,” she says with a laugh. The chosen dress the show’s fans have come to recognize, was one Crabtree and Moss easily agreed upon.

“We immediately felt it,” she says of the flowing design. “It was because of the movement of the rayon fabric.” 

Funnily (and slightly ironically) enough given the seriousness of the project, it is this very fabric — and the countless others Crabtree and her team use to put together the costumes for the show’s cast — that are now giving back to people in need. 

“Our fabrics from our handmaids, our fabrics from our commander’s wives and our Econowives and commanders, even, all of that is finding its way onto the backs of children in third-world countries, as well as homeless people in Toronto — and that’s super cool,” she explains of an initiative that was started by a Toronto woman named Diana Collins.

The happenstance meeting between Crabtree and Collins has led the award-nominated costumer straight to her latest project, an as-yet unnamed documentary telling Collins’ story of the scraps she collects for use in “healing art” as well as clothing, mattresses and scarves. 

“It’s about women, and it’s about struggle,” she explains of the project, which sees her working alongside her assistant on The Handmaid’s Tale, Courtney Mitchell. “It’s closely, I’m sure not by accident, aligned with the vibe of The Handmaid’s Tale.”  

So, given the fact that she has now had more than a few occasions to tell both Atwood and Wilson how she feels about them, has Crabtree ever divulged? Not quite.

“Daniel Wilson, I think a little bit, because he’s been around. And the man is so kind! I’ve had a chance to very shyly, quietly tell him,” she admits. “With Ms. Atwood, I’ve told her very quietly because the world wants to speak with her and grab her. And tell their whole story to her when they see her. She’s such a beautiful conversationalist, as is Daniel Wilson, so I just kind of sit and listen with mouth agape when they’re talking. 

“It’s awful because I’ve been next to her on the red carpet almost fainting just looking at her. She’s beautiful. Her skin is beautiful. Her mind is so huge and so vast. And she’s so young. That’s the thing I’m learning from Margaret Atwood and Daniel Wilson — they’re seventy-something and almost 90, and they couldn’t be younger than a 20 year old. They’re so open and free.”

Aharris@postmedia.com

VICTORIA — Jewel Kilcher says she can understand that some fans might jump to conclusions about why she’s starring in Hallmark’s Fixer Upper franchise.

The actor, singer-songwriter and author known as Jewel plays Shannon Hughes, a contractor who solves mysteries while restoring Victorian homes in the movies based on Kate Carlisle’s bestsellers.

The Utah-born entertainer doesn’t dismiss assumptions that Fixer Upper might be a wish-fulfilment project for someone who was raised on a homestead without heat or running water in small-town Alaska. She was also homeless for a year while busking her way across the United States after graduation.

However, there are other reasons she chose to do the series that has brought her back to Victoria to shoot the third instalment, she said.

“I liked the character because she stands for two things I really like,” said Jewel, who, with director Mark Jean and his crews, returned to the home in Fairfield that depicts her residence.

Other Victoria locations include a Tudor-style home in Rockland, the new TV movie’s architectural centrepiece.

Wearing skinny jeans, a cream-coloured blouse and a brown suede jacket, Jewel, 43, chatted during a break from shooting a scene in a Sidney parking lot where her character and crime reporter Mac Sullivan (Colin Ferguson) corner an elusive suspect.

“It’s about how you’re learning to rely on yourself, whether you’re male or female, and self-reliance is how I was raised. And it’s about following your intuition, not ignoring that little voice in you that knows when something is off. It’s a hard voice to learn to listen to, and we usually pay a heavy price when we ignore it.”

Not surprisingly, the series set in idyllic Lighthouse Cove has been compared with Murder She Wrote, the CBS mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as a mystery writer who solves crimes in Cabot Cove.

“When my friend heard I was doing the series, she gave me a T-shirt saying ‘Angela Lansbury is my spirit animal,’ ” Jewel said with a laugh. She is a huge Lansbury fan and said she would love to have the stage and screen legend make an appearance in the Hallmark show.

Like the actor, singer and dancer of Broadway fame, Jewel is a triple threat, as well known for her poetry and philanthropy, with public housing and breast cancer among causes about which she is passionate.

“In [Lansbury’s] day, it was common to act, sing and dance, but let’s not focus on my dancing just yet,” Jewel said, admitting that switching gears from music to acting is a challenge.

“It’s a very different discipline. It’s actually very nerve-wracking,” said Jewel, whose multi-genre musical career took off after the release of her 1995 debut album Pieces of You.

“It’s a very technical job. You have to stop here, land here, pivot on that line. It’s a very choreographed thing that has to look very natural.”

It’s not as if she’s charting new territory, however. While her fame as a musician overshadowed her early aspiration to have a dual career, she has pulled off some impressive acting feats.

“My music career was breaking and I was very busy, working 365 days a year,” she said, recalling part of the reason she didn’t make her big-screen acting debut until 1999, in Ang Lee’s Ride with the Devil.

“I made a conscious decision. I felt creatively fulfilled with my music and I felt like acting was an amazing bonus, but not a necessity in my life. Also having a life was a necessity, so I chose my life,” said Jewel, who has a six-year-old son, Kase, from her marriage to ex-husband Ty Murray, a professional rodeo cowboy. “If you look at time and your life as a garden, and what you water is what grows, and you want something other than your career to grow, then you’ve got to spend time watering your life,” she said.

She was also disillusioned to learn so many roles women were being offered in the 1990s were in sexually explicit movies.

“You’d go to auditions when you had to suddenly reveal, when you dropped your book, that you were bare-chested.”

It was worth the wait to appear opposite Tobey Maguire in Lee’s Civil War drama, she said.

Her performance as a war widow drew praise from the late film critic Roger Ebert, who wrote: “She’s an actress here, not a pop star trying out a new hobby.”

It was being cast as country music legend June Carter Cash in the Lifetime movie Ring of Fire five years ago that rekindled her desire to pursue acting, said Jewel, who also appeared as herself in Walk Hard (2007).

“I came to realize that I could do a movie in a month and still scratch that itch, which I so enjoy,” said Jewel, whose popular new franchise gives her the freedom to do that while maintaining her concert schedule.

All going well, Front Street Pictures hopes to shoot two or three more franchise entries here each year in partnership with Muse Entertainment, said vice-president of production Allen Lewis.

© Copyright Times Colonist

David Duchovny

Oct. 14, 8 p.m. | Imperial, 319 Main

Tickets and info: $25 at ticketweb.ca. Meet and Greet tickets, $150.

David Duchovny is shooting season 11 of the X-Files in Vancouver. The 10 episodes begin airing in January.

The trailer is out there. 

With plans to bring his bestselling second novel Bucky F***ing Dent to the screen, and with constant acting and writing work, you would think that the man who brought the character of Fox Mulder to fame wouldn’t be rushing to start another career. That would be wrong.

With the May 2015 release of his 12-song debut album, titled Hell or Highwater, the actor/director/author added recording artist to his skill set. His second album, Every Third Thought, is due for a December release on Pledge Music and is available for pre-order at DavidDuchovnyMusic.com.

Duchovny made his local singing debut in August 2015 at the Alexander in Gastown. He returns to town with a partial band to perform a full set at the Imperial. Having toured Europe and the U.S., he says the live act is improved. He is the first to admit that going into the music business at a time that many are calling “The Golden Age for Television” may seem weird.

“I was never in the music business 25 years ago before it went through its revolution, so I have no reference point there,” said Duchovny. “Also, I have the luxury of not needing to have a hit or to sell a lot of records because it isn’t my focus for my bread and butter. I can make it extremely personal, exactly what I want it to be,. So it’s definitely the right time to be making music for me.”

When A-list actors shift gears and get into music, it would be safe to say that the results usually reinforce that the artists had already chosen the right profession. Duchovny didn’t arrive with a backstory about how he was always a musician, etc. Rather, the Yale University English-lit MA found himself learning to play guitar at the same time he was writing poetry. Presto, enough material to put together an album.

Hell or Highwater was a pretty low-key affair, too. The spare production and slight twang of the music presents a sound that seems right at home in the dusty California heartland.

“I would say that it’s definitely coming from a singer-songwriter appreciation and also from my competence as a writer or a musician at this stage of writing,” he said. “I may be 57, but I am by no means a 57-year-old musician. These are my first songs, and they are going to be like everybody’s — rediscovering that wheel which always stays the same with three chords and a melody.”

For a first foray, he proves adept at delivering solid barroom roots rock without any of the bombast or pretension listeners have come to expect on similar releases. Songs such as Positively Madison Avenue, with its Dylan-referencing title, or 3000 where he name-checks the Beatles, are aiming pretty high, but there has to be a growth curve for every artist. At least he isn’t trying to write for a market he isn’t part of.

“Lyrically, I’m not trying to write younger than me,” he said. “I’m going to write about the universal human concerns that I’ve got and they are going to come out in a way that’s lived in, I would think.”

For the coming performance, he is bringing up half his band from Los Angeles. 

“It’s keyboards, guitar and me, and the guys will sing some too,” he said. “It will be vulnerable, for sure, because I wouldn’t win American Idol. I’m fine with that.”

Duchovny is really pleased with where his career is at these days. Reflecting on the incredible longevity of the X-Files, he sees a few reasons for the legacy of Chris Carter’s murky American science fiction drama.

“It’s a very flexible show that has many different strands to it and the tone is quite flexible too, moving from completely believable and sincere to almost a whimsical send-up of itself,” he said. “And the mystery of it, too. When we started in ’93, there hadn’t been a show that encouraged people to think as far outside the box of television since the Twilight Zone.”

Continuing on, he notes how the massive expansion of new platforms such as Netflix, Amazon and others is fuelling a demand for content that might easily lead to a decline in quality and a fair amount of filler programming. But the opposite is occurring.

“Television is so much better than movies in many ways, the whole relationship is flipped. So it’s hard to even think back to ’93 when there was really nobody doing what we were doing,” he said. “There is such willingness to take chances now that there wasn’t before. You don’t have to have big hits — they are still pretty few — rather you can just do something original, high-quality and know you are looking to meet a smaller niche.”

The optioning of his second book, Bucky F***ing Dent, for production may just yield another one of those top-quality viewing experiences. But the name might need changing.

“Yeah, it seems that, with all the things in this world that we really need to be worrying about, we’re still really concerned about that one little word, which is unfortunate,” he said. ” It’s actually started as a screenplay and now it’s reverting back to its original form. I seem to have the money to make it, so it looks like it’s happening this summer.”

Once the X-Files finishes its shoot in Hollywood North, Duchovny has his third novel, titled In the Subways, coming out in April 2018. He is also developing a couple of shows that he may or may not be starring in.

“I can’t really say too much about those … because they aren’t committed to shooting at the moment, so we’ll see,” he said. “When the work is good, whether it is writing, acting of singing, it doesn’t matter to me what the venue or the form is if it feels good and true and entertaining. I’ll dance if you want me too, but you don’t want me to.”

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