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Made In Canada stars Rick Mercer as Richard
Strong, a lowly script reader who manoeuvres
himself and outmanoeuvres his opponents until the
smart young man becomes Head of Television at
Pyramid. Among the cast are, back from left,
Mercer, Leah Pinsent, and front, Janet Kidder,
Peter Keleghan, Dan Lett.
Dan Lett, Rick Mercer and *Peter Keleghan star in
Salter Street Film's Made In Canada.
Dan Lett, *Rick Mercer and Peter Keleghan star in
Salter Street Film's Made In Canada.
*Dan Lett, Rick Mercer and Peter Keleghan star in
Salter Street Film's Made In Canada.
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Rick Mercer is propelling Ron James up a curving staircase. Again. The two, with Mercer trying to steer a very drunk James towards an elevator,
have been going up and down that same set of stairs for what seems like hours. Then there is the issue of an elevator door that either opens too soon or not at
all. Not to mention that James has to emerge from the same elevator moments
later, but not too late or too soon. And this whole scene, from the bottom of the stairs to the top, from entering
the elevator to the exit, is being shot in one uncut sequence. "These all-in-ones are so difficult," laments director Henry Sawyer-Foner. "But
when it works, it really pays off." This choreographed segment featuring Mercer and James, which will turn out to be
about a minute or so on-screen, is part of a pivotal scene in the debut episode
of Made in Canada, Salter Street's much-anticipated six-part satire about the
film and television industry to air on the CBC this coming season. The network has the new series scheduled to start Oct. 5 at 8:30 p.m. following
This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The cast and crew just wrapped up shooting the half-hour series while holed up
in Salter Street's actual Barrington Street offices, filming Fridays through
Sundays, while the company's staff was off for an extended weekend. Crammed with lights, cameras and action, the swanky office space was transformed
into the home of the Toronto-based Pyramid Productions, a fictional company
that produces profitable, exportable and awful television shows and films. The jewel in the fake production office's crown is the TV show Beaver Creek,
starring Walter Franklyn - "Canada's most beloved actor" - played by Gordon
Pinsent. But a comer in the company's portfolio is the historical adventure
series The Sword of Damocles (think Sinbad crossed with Xena: The Warrior
Princess), with the action hero played by Black Harbour's Alex Carter. With Made In Canada's episodes being shot out of order to accommodate actor
availability, the series debut was recently filmed, which will introduce
Canadians to a back-stabbing, ladder-climbing and ego-driven cast of
characters, led by Mercer, who helped create and write the series. As signified by the complicated stairs and elevator scene, lowly script reader
Richard Strong (Mercer) has successfully laid a trap to unseat Pyramid's head
of television, a job now occupied by his brother-in-law Raymond Drudge (James). "This is satirizing people who make television and film, who in my opinion are
mostly boobs and lawyers," says Mercer, relaxing between scenes during the
overnight shoot that centres around a party to celebrate the fact 21 more
episodes of Damocles have been ordered. "And this company that we're satirizing, they make very successful television
but it's not very good television. But that's never discussed as an issue." The series also stars Leah Pinsent (More Tears) as Veronica Miller, the
company's too-good-for-her-own-good chief operating officer; Peter Keleghan
(The Newsroom), as CEO Alan Roy; local actress Jackie Torrens (Birdy Num Num)
as Alan's assistant Wanda; Emily Hampshire (The Last Don) as Alan's daughter
Siobhan; Dan Lett (Wind at My Back) as Victor Sela, head of Pyramid's film
division; and Janet Kidder (Featuring Loretta) - a dead ringer for her aunt,
Margot - as Raymond Drudge's assistant. Along with this main stable of characters, the show will also include
appearances by several guest actors like Pinsent, Carter, Nicholas Campbell,
Aiden Devine, Anne-Marie MacDonald and Maria Vacratsis. "The other night we did the cast photo and I was really proud of the actors in
this," Mercer says. "And getting Gordon Pinsent, that's amazing for me." Halifax-raised James, an actor and veteran stand-up comic who during the night
shoot keeps the cast and crew in stitches with tales of a Club Med vacation
from hell, says he jumped at the chance to be in three episodes of the series
after reading the script. "The scripts were so good, they were tight and fast and funny," he says, "and
everybody was talking about it in Toronto." James, who now lives in Toronto and gained recognition for his one-man show Up &
Down in Shaky Town, about the trials and tribulations of making it in Los
Angeles, was also was thrilled to work on something made by, for and about his
home and native land. "Canadian actors for the most part are usually lined up trying to get some parts
in lame (American) movies of the week ... that are not that good." Keleghan also caught good vibes about Made in Canada when scripts were being
circulated. "The buzz when these things came around the acting community in Toronto,
everybody wanted to be in on it," says Keleghan, who played the dim-witted
anchorman on CBC's acclaimed satire, The Newsroom. "It's the same kind of thing as when The Newsroom came around," he says. Keleghan, playing a character he describes as a cross between Canadian movie
mogul Robert Lantos and The Simpsons' Mr. Burns, says there are similarities
between The Newsroom and Made in Canada, but mostly in terms of style and not
content. "(Made in Canada) is not derivative, you can't really make any direct
comparisons." Mercer, looking every inch the corporate shark in his all-black attire,
developed the idea for Made in Canada along with executive producer Gerald Lunz
(also a producer with 22 Minutes) and Salter Street boss Michael Donovan. Originally called The Industry, then The Casting Couch, and finally Made In
Canada, Mercer says they had toyed with the idea of a series set in the showbiz
world for a while and originally contemplated a MuchMusic-type workplace. "But then I realized I didn't know much about the music industry," he says. Mercer, a regular on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, also produced by Salter Street,
then holed up with fellow 22 Minutes writer Mark Farrell to come up with
scripts for the series. Mercer, who's never done episodic television before, says it's been energizing
to work in a format so different from that of 22 Minutes. "As an actor, it's been very challenging." No matter where the series was set, Mercer and executive producer Lunz - a
self-confessed Shakespeare nut - wanted the show to be Shakespearean in theme
and style. Richard the III, in particular, has been a prime inspiration, with Richard
Strong striving for power at all costs, even at the expense of his
brother-in-law's career. Also borrowed from Richard III are the into-the-camera
asides by Strong, where he divulges his innermost thoughts and schemes to
viewers. Back at the set-up for the faux Damocles party, which includes a life-sized
cutout of Carter as Damocles and extras as waiters in Damocles-type costumes,
Lunz says it's been a tight squeeze to film in an actual office but it's helped
to inspire the cast. "It's great for the actors in terms of creation because it's so real," he says. So real, in fact, that the offices of Salter Street executives Catherine Tait
and Paul Donovan are used to film scenes involving the actors playing the head
honchos of Pyramid. Salter Street's Gemini Awards for Codco and 22 Minutes are also lined up to
serve as the Geminis for Pyramid's Beaver Creek. Mercer says he's not concerned about the series being "too inside" for the
general public because the politics, back-stabbing and ladder-climbing found in
Pyramid Productions occur in most offices. Co-star Keleghan agrees. "There are two kinds of people in this world: those who work hard to elevate
themselves and the B types, who put the other guy down and scramble above them
in order to look bigger. All the people (in Made in Canada) are B types."
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