The odds couple
Actors beat the percentages, landing identical film, TV gigs
A pair of actor pals are marvelling at how they beat the casting odds when they were both summoned from Vancouver to Montreal to star in the Bravo TV cop series 19-2.
Adrian Holmes and Jared Keeso have been friends since they worked together on the TV miniseries Seven Deadly Sins, which was shot in Victoria B.C. in 2010. They were paired again alongside Matt Damon in last year’s bigscreen sci-fi feature Elysium, which filmed in Vancouver and Mexico during 2011.
“We’ve just been joined at the hip,” said Holmes. “I couldn’t have asked for a better dude ... It’s so funny how our worlds have fused, we’re like a package deal.”
The two were on a break at a Mexico City hotel while filming Elysium when they imagined how much fun it would be to do a series together.
“We were having a drink, and I said I could see us doing a cop show or something like that,” Holmes said. “It was the weirdest thing; this was before 19-2 even came to be.”
Added Keeso: “The odds of it happening, especially on a Canada-wide casting call, are so slim.”
In the summer of 2012, casting was underway for the two beat-cop main characters on the Montreal set of 19-2. Keeso had just finished starring in two CBC miniseries based on the life of hockey personality Don Cherry, while Holmes was filming a TV movie in Kelowna.
Holmes had put auditions on tape for the 19-2 pilot episode and a couple of other projects in Vancouver and L.A. when he got the call to do a second testing for 19-2. Holmes and Keeso share an agent, and when she called to tell Holmes he’d got the role, she told him Keeso was to be his co-star.
“Then Jared called me back, we were both like a couple of schoolgirls,” Holmes said. They celebrated when Holmes got back to Vancouver.
“We definitely did a few shots,” Homes said. “A few Irish hand-grenades.”
The pilot filmed that summer, and the rest of the 10-episode series filmed this past fall in Montreal.
Holmes’s character is dealing with the shooting of his previous partner when he is saddled with Keeso as a new partner, a small-town cop who joins the Montreal force after trouble back home.
The show surrounds the two with storylines involving precinct infighting and rivalries and casts this pair as unwilling partners.
“It’s kind of tough,” Keeso said. “We’re such great pals, then we step into a role where we have to hate each other. It was a bit of an adjustment to stop having so much fun, get into that mean pocket and stay there for a day. We snap out of it over dinner and a pint or two at night.”
Said Holmes: “We both really challenge each other, just trying to get the best out of each other as artists.”
Holmes, who grew up in Vancouver, got into acting after an earlier stint as a nurse. His profile got a boost when he played Halle Berry’s love interest in the 2010 indie drama Frankie and Alice, and this year he resumed his recurring roles on the TV series Arrow and Continuum.
Keeso grew up in smalltown Ontario and took to acting at 19, after a couple of years as a junior hockey player. He won a Genie award for 2010s Keep Your Head Up Kid, his first Don Cherry portrayal. As well, Keeso wrapped the upcoming big-screen Godzilla reboot before heading to Montreal for 19-2.
19-2’s filming schedule allowed the producers to get a four-season picture of Montreal, including that city’s brutal winters.
Holmes said his Barbados heritage left him lagging in his ability to withstand the cold.
“It’s going to look spectacular, but I need thicker skin for sure,” Holmes said. “There’s days when you’re so cold your mouth does not want to move. I’m solarpowered; Jared had the edge on me there.”