Northern migration
B.C.’s Jessica Lucas jumped at chance to be a lead, a boss and a Canadian resident for series airing on Citytv starting Monday
Vancouver native Jessica Lucas starring in her own Canadian television series is indicative of a growing trend that bodes well for the industry: a reverse brain drain of talented young stars returning to our shores.
While it has long been standard practice for Canadians to heed the deep gravitational pull of Hollywood, a shifting production landscape in Canada and new-found confidence in telling our own stories has created opportunities that are having an impact on the small and large screens.
“Canadian television has evolved and is changing so rapidly — and to be a part of that is really exciting — that these projects are happening at home now,” says Lucas in an interview.
Lucas is best known for her roles in 90210, Melrose Place or, over the last three years, playing whip-wielding supervillain Tabitha Galivan in the comicbook series Gotham on Fox, which is now in its final season.
But the 33-year-old actress is now No. 1 on the call sheet, starring in her own eight-part crime drama The Murders, debuting Monday on Citytv and created by Emmy-winning Canadian showrunner Damon Vignale ( Motive, Ghost Wars). The show was shot in her Vancouver hometown last year.
“It was the chance to play this fully formed, really complex character in a way that I didn’t have in the past,” says Lucas, who is also an executive producer on the show. “You are seeing work and opportunities that you might not have
seen earlier.”
Early into 2019, viewers have already seen a steady drum beat of Canadian talent repatriating themselves. That includes Lucas, as well as Serinda Swan (from ABC’s Marvel’s Inhumans and HBO’s Ballers) in CBC’s Coroner and Vinessa Antoine, who quit her job at General Hospital to star in CBC’s Diggstown.
With The Murders, there are now two Black women starring in Canadian prime-time network dramas for the first time in history. Diggstown’s Antoine was the first when Diggstown began earlier this month.
“I’m not sure why it’s taken so long. But I’m glad that people are thinking differently,” says Lucas. “Sometimes you have to make some noise to get opportunity. But I think telling your own stories is important. (Showrunner) Damon, for example, is biracial and he wrote this part specifically for a biracial person. And that’s incredibly rare. That excited me.”
Lucas’s dad, a systems programmer, is Black, and her mother, a nurse and health-care administrator, is white. They are both retired and live in Vancouver.
“It means a lot to them that this is a Canadian show. They are both so proud, they’ve seen the hard work that I’ve put in, and this show is the culmination of that,” says Lucas.
In The Murders, Vancouver police detective Kate Jameson wants to be a decorated officer like her late father, who was killed in the line of duty. However, a sequence of events, including leaving her gun unattended in her police car, lead to some dark consequences. While the show is episodic — essentially, a procedural with a new crime built in every week — it also builds on a serialized story arc spotlighting Jameson’s inner turmoil.
As an executive producer on a show for the first time, as well as being in almost every shot as the star, Lucas faced a steep learning curve.
“I think I also brought something into the shoot, being in the business for almost 20 years. But it was an opportunity to be a larger part of the conversation, to have a say in everything from the character to the set design and creative (choices), and I loved it. You feel very involved in the process from the beginning to the end, you get to exercise a different skill set.”
Her co-stars include Lochlyn Munro ( Riverdale), Dylan Bruce ( Orphan Black), Terry Chen ( The Expanse) and Luvia Petersen ( Ghost Wars).
Having control over her own stories this time around is important to Lucas. Her breakout role — and often scenestealing character — in Gotham was killed off abruptly by the Penguin early in the season.
“It was supposed to be a much larger arc in her character, but they had to shrink much of that into one episode because it was the last episode — it wasn’t fully where I wanted it to be,” says Lucas.
“Overall, it was an incredible experience working on that set in New York. But leaving was serendipitous, because it allowed me to do The Murders.”
Shooting in Vancouver also allowed Lucas to spend more time with her family after her marriage last year to Los Angeles chef Alex Jermasek. Another plus is that she finally starred in a show where Vancouver plays an important part of the storyline.
“Vancouver is my favourite place on the planet. It’s stunningly beautiful, and I don’t spend that much time in it anymore because I’m always travelling. I’ve shot there before, but most times it’s Seattle or New York. But this time, we really celebrated the beauty of it in a way that I haven’t done before in other productions. And that sense of home was important to me.”