CALL HIM CANADIAN
Carter star has a history of landing roles in shows made north of the border
Actor Jerry O’Connell continues his connection with the Great White North in new show,
So how does Jerry O’Connell stack up as an American actor playing a Canadian in a TV series that’s set in Ontario?
Try this for Great White North bona fides: he suggests a crossover episode between his new show, Carter, which debuts Tuesday at 8 p.m. on Bravo, and CraveTV hoser hit Letterkenny, which he calls one of the best shows on TV.
It could be “the hockey players finding a body,” O’Connell says. “Coach is gonna be a suspect, he’s gonna freak out when he’s getting interrogated in the box,” he adds, referring to Mark Forward’s notoriously hot-tempered Letterkenny character.
O’Connell also calls Carter “sort of the procedural Schitt’s
Creek,” referencing the CBC comedy.
“If there was a murder a week on Schitt’s Creek it would be Carter.”
In the series, O’Connell plays Harley Carter, a Canadian actor with a hit American detective series who retreats to his fictional hometown of Bishop in Northern Ontario after a red carpet meltdown goes viral. Once home, he reconnects with his childhood friends and begins using his TV detective skills in real cases. Carter is the passion project of Garry Campbell, someone else involved in both the American and Canadian entertainment industries.
Campbell, who has written for such Canadian classics as Kids in the Hall, Less Than Kind and Kim’s Convenience, also has credits on U.S. shows like MADtv and Foxworthy’s Big Night Out.
“He has spent a lot of time in Los Angeles and in Hollywood, and he lives in Collingwood so, I mean, this is all from his brain, him having a foot in both worlds,” O’Connell says. “He just wrote this script (on spec) and it was hilarious.”
O’Connell, 44, who was born in Manhattan — just a Porter Airlines flight away, he notes — will have you know that his association with Canadian TV is of long standing. He appeared in My Secret
Identity from 1988-91, a Toronto-shot and -set cult hit in which he starred as a teenager with superpowers.
He also spent three years in Vancouver making Sliders ( 1995 -99), in which he played a graduate student who accidentally discovers a portal to a parallel universe.
While living in Toronto, “I would party with all the Degras
si kids. I partied with Joey Jeremiah, all the best,” he jokes.
“While I don’t carry a Canadian passport I’m as close as Americans get to being Canadian.”
That being said, he admits he had never heard of North Bay until he began shooting Carter there. He has made up for that gap in his knowledge by becoming one of North Bay’s biggest fans.
“I really feel like a part of my job of being Carter is just letting people know around the world how beautiful North Bay is … Between Lake Nipissing and Trout Lake, you could point the camera (anywhere) basically and it’s gorgeous.
He adds, “If anyone is looking for some cottage property it’s way less crowded than Muskoka. This is the time to get in. It’s just a gorgeous part of the world. On top of that, everyone is super nice.”
You want more Canadiana? O’Connell got involved in Cart
er through his friend Jason Priestley, the Vancouver-born actor known for Beverly Hills, 90210.
Production company Amaze Film + Television had worked with Priestley on Call Me Fitz and reached out to him when they were looking for an actor for Carter.
“He got the script to me, and I just read it and said, ‘This is hilarious. Where’s North Bay?’ I looked it up on Google maps. I said, ‘This is gonna be a lot of fun. Let’s do this.’ ”
The fun, according to O’Connell, comes in sending up the TV police procedural, something he is well acquainted with, having played a detective for years in the series Crossing Jordan, which starred — wait for it — Edmonton-born actress Jill Hennessey.
“I did my time in the procedural world,” he says. With Carter, “we’re poking fun at the genre, at Hollywood. We’re also poking fun at life — to quote one of my favourite ’80s songs — in a northern town.”
Speaking of northern towns, O’Connell planned to be back in North Bay for the premiere of Carter. “I have a special outfit all set up,” he says. “It has a number of Maple Leafs on it.
“I can’t wait to live tweet Carter with the entire population of North Bay.”