Canadian stars, shows light up U.S. airwaves
Canuck dramas flourishing on The CW this fall
Some Canadian television networks struggle to make Canadian content quotas. Then there’s The CW.
The U.S. broadcaster is introducing three new dramas this fall. All three are shot in Canada, and two of the three are headlined by young Canadians.
Arrow stars Toronto-born Stephen Amell. The comic bookinspired action series is based in Vancouver. Beauty and the Beast, a remake of the late-’80s romance series, stars Vancouver-born Kristin Kreuk. It’s shot in Toronto. Emily Owens, M.D., the tale of a young doctor who finds a hospital can be just like high school, features not a Canadian but Mamie Gummer, the look-a-like daughter of Meryl Streep. The series is shot in Vancouver.
Factor in that two more hour- long CW dramas are based in Canada (Supernatural shoots in Vancouver and Nikita shoots in Toronto) and, this fall, The CW appears to have more hour-long, made-in-Canada, scripted dramas on its schedule than CBC, CTV, Global and City — combined.
Maybe The CW should stand for “Canadians at Work.”
The CW even has a Canadianmade show on its summer schedule about young Canadian actors trying to make it in America. Network entertainment president Mark Pedowitz says he’s keeping The L.A. Complex on his summer schedule even though few U.S. viewers have sampled it so far.
The CW’s head of casting, Lori Openden, says her network casts a wide international net in its search for talent. If young Canadian actors have an edge in American television, she feels, it may be that they arrive at auditions with a more varied resume. Openden often finds Canadians have “perfected their craft” working whatever jobs they can get at home before coming to America.
She’s also pleased with the Canadian “day players” — local actors in lesser roles. Peter Roth, president of Warner Bros. Tele- vision, says his studio looks for “the freshest, best sheer actors no matter where they come from, but there has really been a preponderance of great actors from Canada.”
The veteran Hollywood insider singles out Amell as especially poised for stardom.
He’s long been bullish about shooting north of the border. Warner Bros. Television currently has five U.S. network series shooting in Canada, including Fringe in Vancouver.
Roth credits the late, legendary TV producer Stephen J. Cannell, who he worked with on 21 Jump Street in Vancouver in the 1980s, with seeing that there was great value in shooting north of the border. Now, with the dollars near par, Roth feels Canada is still a smart place to make network television thanks to great crews “desperate to prove they are as good, if not better, than American crews. The work ethic,” he says, “is unlike any place else.”