Do you know what scenes you’ll be working on when you go back to work?
“Well, I’m lucky most of my scenes are with Anne. Anne and I get together in the morning and kind of run our lines and work on what we might want to do, and talk about what the scene means. She’s an amazing actress because she’s so much about what the work is, how the work is, how the scenes go, the meaning of the scenes. She’s really into playing with them and fooling around with them, and working them through. The scenes that we’re doing tomorrow – I don’t know if I can divulge that. You’ll have to tune in.”
It’s still a few episodes young and they’re still setting up the characters. How much more do you expect to learn about your character?
“You know Jack, he lives alone and he set his life up so that he can get by. He’s pretty independent. But as the episodes progress you learn more about why chose to live alone.”
Has playing a man of few words been easier or harder for you?
“It’s been good. I feel like as an actor you have all sorts of sides to your personality. One of the ones that I feel really comfortable with is I call it the ‘grunter’. I just grunt a lot. Or the listener that grunts.”
Have you developed a range of different grunts for different situations?
“Oh yeah, it’s like a symphony. It’s a grunt symphony.”
Are you getting closer to the raccoon?
“Yeah, he’s been in a few more episodes. He’s wonderful. What a wonderful animal. The thing about raccoons is they have this amazing built-in curiosity about everything. The moment you put them anywhere it’s like right away, it’s both adorable and fascinating. I guess it’s a hunt for food or they need to sniff where they get most of their information from sniffing and poking. But it has the same quality as a young child.”
This is really your first big gig?
“Pretty much. I was in a couple of the Hallmark movies this last year. But my career, I went to New York to train as an actor and then LA. I did probably 30 or 40 plays so that’s where I think I learned the business.”
Do you feel like you’ve paid your dues?
“I guess so. All my friends and family say the same thing to me. They say, ‘Oh my goodness, you’ve earned this. You’ve really earned this break.’ It’s funny, man. You work 15 years to get a lucky break one day.”
So what was your background? When did you decide to get into acting? Where did you come from before New York and LA?
“I grew up in Nova Scotia in a family where no one was in the entertainment business. I just had that thing inside me. I don’t know what it is but I just, no matter how much rejection and humiliation, I just kept going. I loved it. I loved being on stage and I loved showing off to my friends and neighbors. But yeah, it was a long and windy path. I ended up in Montreal and New York. I had wonderful teachers in New York at Rutgers University. Everybody there wore a black turtleneck and they took themselves very dramatically, very serious. But it was that kind of method – not method, it’s called Meisner school of acting. It was just a great ground work. I think after that everybody has to figure it out on their own, figure out how the system works for them. I guess I’m just the luckiest duck to end up with such a great role, surrounded by such an amazing cast.”
Is relocating to Vancouver just another step? Has it been an easy adjustment?
“It has. Vancouver is such a beautiful town. It feels a bit like old England. They have these beautiful primeval forests that come right down to the city’s edge. It literally feels like you could get up in the morning and just walk into one and just walk for 500 miles and not see anything but a bear. There’s a wildness to it. But my wife and I have been kayaking. We’ve been on walks. I have a dog, Harold, we take him to the parks and stuff. It’s just been fantastic and fresh.”
Now there’s so much action on TV, is it nice to be on a romance?
“Yeah. I feel comfortable. I feel great there. It’s funny because as an actor you just want to do everything. You want to try everything. I’d love to play a serial killer that was nice and open and sweet, and then suddenly has a darkness inside. But whatever comes along is just really exciting. The only thing that I really can’t do is sing, according to all my friends.”
