Degrassi actor shifts to war on drugs in Narcos
For Toronto actor Raymond Ablack, portraying someone with a name other than Raj is “groundbreaking,” he jokes.
The 27-year-old performer has played characters by that name at least three times in the past, though he’s probably best known around here as Sav from Degrassi.
But for his latest role in the third season of Narcos, a Netflix series that depicts the world of drug trafficking in Colombia, Ablack will be playing an American embassy staffer simply named Agent Stoddard. The character doesn’t technically have a first name — Ablack said it’s unofficially “Allan” — but he was more than happy to take it on.
“I love that brown people are being more and more represented on screen,” said Ablack. “I’m glad to have played the Rajs that I have played and what I think is a part — in my small, insignificant way — of progress.”
Ablack, a Whitby native, got his start as an actor playing Young Simba in a production of The Lion Kingat the Princess of Wales theatre in the early part of the last decade. From there, he picked up more roles, later appearing on Orphan Black, Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments and the web series Teenagers.
Snagging a role on Narcos — whose third season arrives on Netflix on Friday — was an “unbelievable” experience, said Ablack, who is currently also a broadcast student at Ryerson University.
His character is a young agent helping to bring down the Cali Cartel, the cocaine trafficking empire that becomes dominant after Pablo Escobar’s death in Season 2.
“It’s everything you’re slaving away as an actor (for), auditioning and being rejected day in and day out for years, that takes a toll,” said Ablack, adding, “you persevere and you hope for an opportunity like this and then to get it . . . you really cannot believe that this is happening to you.”
Sure, Ablack’s screen time is brief, but he spent six months in Bogota while the new season was filming, doing a bit of travel, trying out restaurants and becoming as close as family with his castmates, he said.
His favourite food he discovered while in Colombia was bondiola de cerdo, but he also loved the fresh fruit — especially the mangos: “You can go to the most expensive grocery store in Toronto and it’s not going to taste how it does out there. “
All the same, Ablack hopes to stay in Toronto and travel around the world to work. Might that mean a further season on Narcos for Stoddard?
“I can’t say that yet.”