Wanted: Canada’s Kerry Washington
Did it really take this long? The CBC is looking to cast Diggstown, which will feature the first Black Canadian actress to star in a prime-time drama
Marcie Diggs is a corporate lawyer at the top of her game. But when her aunt commits suicide after a malicious prosecution, she decides to work at a legal aid office in Dartmouth, N.S.
Diggs, in the words of her creator Floyd Kane, is complex. She’s stubborn. Single-minded. Optimistic.
She’s also Canadian and just happens to be Black.
The actress who plays Marcie Diggs, the star of CBC’s Diggstown, premiering this winter, will make history: She will be the first Black Canadian actress to star in a prime-time drama on mainstream network TV, according to the public broadcaster.
“Whatever preconceived notions some people may have about Blackness or Black women, and what that means to be a character on TV, we mean to challenge that,” Kane says.
The show starts shooting in August, so the timing is tight. But the woman who plays Marcie will have some big, imaginary shoes to fill. So far, Kane says he has seen about 30 candidates, but the field remains open.
“We are looking for someone who can carry a show on her shoulders,” Kane says.
“Marcie is in almost every scene in the pilot. What I’m impressed by is that there is such a tremendous amount of talent that we’ve already seen. I’m a bit overwhelmed at some level already. Even if the people I’m seeing don’t turn out to be Marcie, I’ll find a place for them.
“But Marcie is special.”
It’s hard to imagine in a society as diverse as Canada that we haven’t had a drama starring a Black woman. And the casting comes at a time of increased awareness in the industry of how minorities are portrayed — from the #Holly-woodsowhite theme at the Oscars to the recent racist tweets from television star Roseanne Barr likening an Obama aide to an ape.
It was really only six years ago that Kerry Washington made history in the Shonda Rhimescreated drama Scandal in 2012, as the first Black American to lead a prime-time network drama in four decades. Scandal ended its final season in April, although it wasn’t the first to feature a Black female star. That distinction belongs to Teresa Graves in Get Christie Love! which aired for one season in 1974.
In Canada, there have been miniseries (CBC’s Book of Negroes), cable shows (Syfy’s Killjoys) and comedies (Global’s ’ Da Kink in My Hair) featuring Black women.
But prime-time procedural drama has been the gold standard attracting eyeballs for traditional, prestige network viewership. Apart from Scandal, that includes shows in the U.S. such as How to Get Away With Murder and Empire. Those shows catapulted stars Viola Davis and Taraji P. Henson to greater fame.
“Was I shocked that there wasn’t a drama with a Black star before? Yes, of course,” says Heather Conway, the CBC’s ex- ecutive vice-president of English services and the person ultimately responsible for green-lighting the show. “If Canada is more diverse, we should be diverse. We’re not putting something on the air just to be different. It has to excellent.”
Conway says the CBC should be on the forefront of change. As a lesbian, she says she had never seen her own sexuality reflected onscreen until shows such as Showtime’s The L Word came along in 2004, about a group of gay friends.
“When I first saw it I thought, ‘Wow, is this show for real?’ and I’m in the community. And that thought seems shocking to me. But if I announced today that there was going to be an LGBTQ character in a show nobody would blink. It’s surprising how long it takes to change and how quickly this can become the new normal. Because it should be.” Canada has not been completely behind the times. The CBC drama Street Legal, which is getting a reboot this season, featured a groundbreaking character in Anthony Sherwood as Dillon Beck, a Black lawyer. In 1987, having an interracial relationship was seen as groundbreaking on network TV.
One problem, Kane says, is that the industry has a diversity issue not just in front of the camera but behind as well.
“I have been looking for senior female Black writers for my writers room, but there are maybe four or five in the entire country. That’s an issue.”
Kane, a former entertainment lawyer and executive with Salter Street Films and DHX Media before writing for shows such as Continuum and Backstage, says the film and TV world is not unlike the legal world when he was a young lawyer working for a big Bay Street firm.
“Law firms were very white, but we eventually saw the turn happen. And I think that’s happening now,” he says.
Diggstown, which will be shot in Halifax, came about after Kane tried to develop a legal aid drama a decade ago.
“We don’t see poor people on TV” and current legal dramas such as Suits tend to be glossy interpretations of what lawyers do, Kane says.
“I have a brother who drives a truck. And I kept thinking, ‘What happens if he gets pulled over for drunk driving?’ He loses his licence, he can’t work, he can’t support his family. He might end up homeless. He doesn’t get to see his kids. It’s a progression. And who are the people who help him out of that predicament?”
Kane leans back in his seat, opening his hands wide.
“The thing I love about Halifax is that when it’s this wide, it’s beautiful. There are vibrant colours, greenery and a touch of water. And when you get close, you see the grime. There’s a lot more going on.”
In some ways, Kane could be describing Marcie Diggs. There are many shades to Diggs, including the fact the actress who plays her had better be athletic.
In the opening scene she’s surfing.
“The first time we see her onscreen she’s in the water. It’s that whole notion about Black people and water and swimming, that they don’t do those things. It’s just the opening salvo of a longer journey,” Kane says with a grin.
“Was I shocked that there wasn’t a drama with a Black star before? Yes, of course.” HEATHER CONWAY EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT OF ENGLISH SERVICES, CBC