Link:Â Billy Campbell on season 2 of CTV’s ‘Cardinal,’ feeling ‘spiritually Canadian’
The life of an actor isn’t always glamorous. Take Billy Campbell, for example. The lanky Virginian sits in a rundown mess hall on a remote and abandoned helicopter airfield. It’s late spring, cold, and raining hard. To kill time between shooting scenes on the CTV series “Cardinal,†he kills mosquitoes. Continue reading.
Link: Canadian TV crime drama Cardinal returns to its elements
“There’s a lot going on under the surface and that’s really kind of what I like about him. . . . Last season, the ice was kind of a nice metaphor for Cardinal the person, that there was this layer of ice on top of what would be a lot going on underneath. And I just thought, ‘Here’s something that I haven’t had a chance to do and I think I can do it.’ †Continue reading.
From Brendan Kelly of the Montreal Gazette:
Link: Karine Vanasse relishes her return to CTV’s ‘real and raw’ Cardinal
“I feel like in Season 1 we got to know who Cardinal was and we got to know who Delorme really was on a more human level towards the end of the season. I think we start Season 2 knowing more about who she really is. I think that in Season 1 people might at first have been wondering if she was just a driven police officer wanting to get higher in the ranks.” Continue reading.Â
From Heather M. of The Televixen:
Link: Karine Vanasse talks Cardinal Season 2
“I like the fact that we have six episodes [so] that you can go in-depth with the characters. You don’t have that much dialogue. It makes a difference that the camera takes the time to get reactions from the characters, so even if words aren’t being said, you get to go in-depth [as a viewer], and as an actor you get to explore those characters.†Continue reading.Â
From Bridget Liszewski of The TV Junkies:
Link: Cardinal’s Karine Vanasse on why Delorme is still questioning Cardinal in Season 2
“As we saw in Season 1, she loves her job and she loves to focus on her work. In regards to her journey in Season 2 and as far as Cardinal goes, there’s a level of trust that exists now. At the same time, he keeps a certain distance with her. For her, finding her place next to him is a little hard at first, and it is a little confusing for her to understand.” Continue reading.Â
Forget about catching a murderer. The real killers during the filming of Season 2 of Cardinal were the insects. As the title suggests, Cardinal: Blackfly Season—returning Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV—was filmed during the spring in North Bay, Ont., and boasted a horrific number of flying things that chomped on stars Billy Campbell, Karine Vanasse, and the rest of the cast and crew.
“Mosquitoes were first,” Campbell said during a break in filming last summer. “Then we had the blackflies, then the shadflies, horse flies, deer flies … a hands-worth of horrifying things. The thing about blackflies is that they have an anaesthetic they put into you first, so you don’t feel them biting and you only find out later when you get home and take off your shirt and it starts itching. And it itches for days.”
With Sarah Dodd (Motive) showrunning Blackfly Season, the Cardinal franchise once again embraces Giles Blunt’s book series to tell its twisted tale. Where Season 1 set the table for viewers by introducing Det. John Cardinal (Campbell) and Det. Lise Delorme (Vanasse) and the world they inhabit, Season 2 offers plenty for viewers to feast on. The Nordic noir theme returns with the star addition to the cast once again Northern Ontario, ruggedly beautiful and buggy as all hell. It’s against that backdrop we’re introduced to Red (Alex Paxton-Beesley) a young woman who stumbles out of the forest bug-bitten and suffering from amnesia on Thursday. Who she is and what crime she witnessed is the focus of Season 2’s six episodes.
Karine Vanasse as Lise Delorme
Along for the drama are returning characters in Det. Jerry Commanda (Glen Gould), Catherine Cardinal (Deborah Hay), Staff Sergeant Noelle Dyson (Kristen Thomson), Cpl. Malcolm Musgrave (David Richmond Peck) and Kelly Cardinal (Alanna Bale). New faces in the fictional Algonquin Bay include Ray Northwind (Bruce Ramsay), Kevin Tait (Jonathan Keltz), Det. Alan Clegg (Kevin Hanchard), Scott Lasalle (Kris Holden-Ried) and Leon Rutkowsky (Dan Petronijevic).
We spoke to Campbell and Vanasse, who gave us some Season 2 scoop.
Aubrey Nealon was the showrunner in Season 1 of Cardinal. This season it’s Sarah Dodd. What’s it been like working with her?
Billy Campbell: I’d never had the pleasure of working with Sarah before and I have now. It was as smooth a transition as you can imagine. It was different people involved but the same quality of everything. Aubrey, as you know, did the whole first season himself and it nearly broke him. [Laughs.] Sarah had a few people with her and I think it was a much easier thing all the way around for that reason.
The book this season is based on is called Blackfly season and you filmed during blackfly season. What were the bugs like?
BC: Horrifying. Horrifying. Mosquitoes were first, then we had the blackflies, then the shadflies, horse flies, deer flies … a hands-worth of horrifying things. The thing about blackflies is that they have an anaesthetic they put into you first, so you don’t feel them biting and you only find out later when you get home and take off your shirt and it starts itching. And it itches for days. I slathered myself with mosquito repellant, the DEET-free stuff, and it worked like a charm until I got home and realized they’d gotten under my shirt and had burrowed into my hair and eaten into my scalp. I saw a horse fly down by the river during one day of shooting out of the corner of my eye and I thought it was a hummingbird. I looked and it was a fricking horse fly.
Karine Vanasse: The bugs are really present. I was just really glad I wasn’t bitten around my eyes. There was one scene where they had to film me from one side of my face because the other side was all swollen. The seasons are so well-explored in the books—the beauty of the area and the atmosphere is very heavy—it’s perfect for the heaviness of the story; the weight that Cardinal is carrying compared and contrasting with how lush the landscape is.
Alex Paxton-Beesley as “Red”
Where are we at when we catch up with John Cardinal?
BC: To me, the spine of the show is what’s happening with Cardinal and Delorme. And then, of course, there are the things to support that. The crime itself is almost incidental. It’s almost symbolic of the tortured inner life in a way. Where Cardinal is when we start the second season is, what I’ve figured out, is he really wants to quit. The first time we see him this season he’s lounging in the back of a motorboat on a lake with Catherine and he takes her to see a little cabin on the lake and says, ‘I can fix it up and I can quit.’ She says, ‘Pfft, you’re never going to quit.’ He really wants to be done and, at the same time, he’s afraid of being done because he has a wife who is sick and isn’t sure what he would do if he wasn’t doing this. As far as he and Delorme are concerned, they already feel a certain way about each other.
As far as he and Delorme are concerned, they already feel a certain way about each other. For me, it’s there, it’s just that he can’t even admit it to himself. There is an intimacy between them and I’m convinced a respect for each other as detectives. There is that running under the surface and the things that happen in the second season … Sarah and the gang did a wonderful job of interweaving what will happen in the third season into Season 2.
In Season 1, Lise had a boyfriend in Josh, who was not a character in the books. What about in Season 2? No Josh, right?
KV: Oh no. We see that she’s not really sad about that. What we get from the books is that Lisa really doesn’t have much of a social life. And, by having a boyfriend and then having him leave is just a confirmation that she doesn’t have much of a social life.
What’s her journey in Season 2?
KV: She shared a secret with Cardinal in Season 1 and he didn’t want to talk about it. So, where do you go from there? She still has that feeling he’s keeping something from her and she’s confused about how she’s feeling at her job and working with him. This season we see what it means for Lise to be affected by a case when it hits home. Not because you’re closely related to that person but because you care. That’s new to her.
CTV officially announced today that CARDINAL, the international success and #1 new Canadian drama series of the 2016/17 broadcast season, returns for a gripping Season 2 on January 4. Strategically scheduled in a Thursday night timeslot immediately following the two biggest shows on television, THE BIG BANG THEORY (8 p.m.) and YOUNG SHELDON (8:30 p.m.), the critically acclaimed series airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV and CTV GO, following a CraveTVTM FIRST LOOK streaming beginning Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET. CARDINAL is also set to premiere on Super Écran day-and-date with CTV.
Viewers can catch up on Season 1 now on CraveTVTM and in a six-part television event beginning Monday, Dec. 25 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CTV Two and CTV.ca. Click HERE for the Season 2 trailer.
Directed by Jeff Renfroe (ROGUE), Season 2 of the Directors Guild of Canada(DGC) award-winning series stars Golden Globe®-nominee Billy Campbell (THE KILLING) as John Cardinal and the multiple Genie Award-winning actress Karine Vanasse (REVENGE) as Detective Lise Delorme, as they weave through an intricate investigation that exposes the seedy underbelly of picturesque Algonquin Bay.
Cycle 1 of CARDINAL garnered a worldwide audience after Entertainment One (eOne) successfully licensed the series internationally to more than 100 territories, with additional sales still pending. For eOne, the series has been a hit with international audiences, debuting to critical acclaim and strong ratings. International sales include: Hulu in the U.S., BBC Four in the UK, and Canal Plus in France, Telekom in Germany, Calle 13 in Spain, C More in Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway), and SBS in Australia, to name a few.
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CARDINAL picks up several months after the events of Season 1. It’s early summer in Algonquin Bay and the blackflies aren’t the only ones out for blood. Detectives John Cardinal (Campbell) and Lise Delorme (Vanasse) find themselves with a strange case on their hands involving a young woman with a gunshot wound to the head. The investigation quickly takes a turn as Cardinal and Delorme uncover a series of disturbing, ritualistic killings that may be connected to their young victim. Cardinal must work to identify the young woman before her attacker strikes again.
Joining Billy Campbell and Karine Vanasse in Season 2 of CARDINAL is an all-star supporting cast that includes Bruce Ramsay (19-2) as Ray Northwind, Alex Paxton-Beesley (PURE) as Red, Jonathan Keltz (REIGN) as Kevin Tait, Kevin Hanchard (ORPHAN BLACK) as Detective Alan Clegg, Kris Holden-Ried (VIKINGS) as Scott Lasalle, and Dan Petronijevic (19-2) as Leon Rutkowsky.
Returning cast members include Deborah Hay (The Anniversary) as Catherine Cardinal, Glen Gould (Rhymes for Young Ghouls) as Det. Jerry Commanda, Kristen Thomson (Away From Her) as Staff Sergeant Noelle Dyson, David Richmond-Peck (ORPHAN BLACK) as Corporal Malcolm Musgrave, and Alanna Bale (PRIME RADICALS) as Kelly Cardinal.
In the premiere episode, entitled “Red” (Thursday, Jan. 4 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV and CTV GO), Detective Jerry Commanda (Glen Gould) finds a confused, red-haired woman alone at a roadside bar with a bullet in her head. Red (Alex Paxton-Beesley) has no memory of who she is, how she got there, or who shot her. Even after the bullet is removed, she can’t remember anything. Commanda turns the case over to Detectives John Cardinal land Lise Delorme, who must protect Red while trying to uncover her identity and shooter.
CARDINAL is produced by Sienna Films and eOne in association with CTV, with the financial participation of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, the Canada Media Fund, and the Cogeco Program Development Fund; and with the assistance of the Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit. Super Écran has commissioned the series for French-language Canadian broadcast. eOne distributes the series worldwide.
CARDINAL is adapted from the John Cardinal Mysteries series, a series of six bestselling crime novels written by Giles Blunt. Sarah Dodd (MOTIVE, RANSOM) serves as an Executive Producer and writer for Cycle 2. Jennica Harper (MOTIVE), Alison Bingeman (19-2), and Jeff Renfroe co-executive produce the series, with Renfroe directing all six episodes. The drama is executive produced by Sienna Films duo Julia Sereny and Jennifer Kawaja (COMBAT HOSPITAL). For eOne, Jocelyn Hamilton and Armand Leo serve as Executive Producers.
CTV and Super Écran, alongside producers Sienna Films and Entertainment One (eOne), announced today that production is underway on the third cycle of hit original drama CARDINAL, starring Golden Globe® nominee Billy Campbell (THE KILLING) and the multiple Genie Award-winning actress Karine Vanasse (REVENGE). Inspired by By the Time You Read This and Crime Machine, the fourth and fifth novels in the John Cardinal Mysteries series written by Ontario native and award-winning author Giles Blunt, the third season of the networks’ serialized drama is shooting six, hour-long episodes in North Bay, Ont. and Toronto.
The first season of CARDINAL was the #1 new Canadian drama of the 2016/17 broadcast season, averaging 1.1 million total viewers weekly, and received an unprecedented two-cycle renewal. eOne has successfully licensed the series internationally with the first season of CARDINAL having aired in U.S., U.K., France, Spain, and Scandinavia, among other territories. The second season of CARDINAL recently wrapped production and is slated to premiere as part of CTV and Super Écran’s 2017/18 season.
In the third season, entitled CARDINAL: BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, the autumn season starts to shroud Algonquin Bay, but the glorious fall colours can’t hide the town’s most gruesome double murder for long. As Cardinal and Delorme’s detective work brings them precariously close to a doomsday cult with nothing to lose, Cardinal launches his own investigation into a case far more personal and dangerous.
Joining Billy Campbell and Karine Vanasse in CARDINAL: BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS is an all-star supporting cast that includes Rya Kihlstedt (RAY DONOVAN), as Sharlene ‘Mama’ Winston; Aaron Ashmore (KILLJOYS) as Randall Wishart; Alex Ozerov (THE AMERICANS) as Jack; Sophia Lauchlin Hirt (THE ROMEO SECTION) as Nikki; Canadian Screen Award winner Nick Serino (Sleeping Giant) as Lemur; Tom Jackson (NORTH OF 60) as Lloyd Kreeger; Jennifer Podemski (BLACKSTONE) as Wendy Doucette; Susan Coyne (SLINGS AND ARROWS) as Susan Bell; and Devery Jacobs (THIS LIFE) as Sam Doucette.
Returning cast members include Deborah Hay (The Anniversary) as Catherine Cardinal; Glen Gould (Rhymes for Young Ghouls) as Det. Jerry Commanda; Kristen Thomson (Away From Her) as Staff Sergeant Noelle Dyson; Stephen Ouimette as Dr. Frederick Bell; and Alanna Bale (PRIME RADICALS) as Kelly Cardinal.
CARDINAL is produced by Sienna Films and eOne in association with CTV, with the financial participation of the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, the Canada Media Fund, and the Cogeco Program Development Fund; and with the assistance of the Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit. Super Écran has commissioned the series for French-language Canadian broadcast. eOne distributes the series worldwide.
CARDINAL is adapted from the John Cardinal Mysteries series, a series of six bestselling crime novels written by Giles Blunt. Cycle 3 of CARDINAL is written by Patrick Tarr (SAVING HOPE), who also serves as an Executive Producer and Head Writer, with co-executive producer Noelle Carbone (SAVING HOPE, ROOKIE BLUE) and story editors Shannon Masters and Aaron Bala. Executive Producer Daniel Grou aka Podz (19-2) returns to direct all six episodes. The drama is executive produced by Sienna Films duo Julia Sereny and Jennifer Kawaja (RANSOM, COMBAT HOSPITAL). For eOne, Jocelyn Hamilton and Tecca Crosby serve as Executive Producers.
Link: Bingeworthy: Hulu’s ‘Cardinal’ finds murder and corruption in the Great White North
“Cardinal†is engrossing and deliberately paced, and as a native Canadian and now Wisconsinite, I’ve seldom seen the impenetrable white of a Canadian winter portrayed on screen as well as it is here. So, even though it’s the dog days of summer, wrap up in a blanket and get pulled into this chilling mystery series. Continue reading.
The performances are quite good, although Campbell speaks all of his lines is a somewhat loud whisper. It feels at times like an affectation, but otherwise, he invests the right about of credible angst to make the character compelling. Continue reading.
