Tag Archives: CBC

Featured, This Life

This Life’s Marianne Farley on Nicole’s journey to find herself

On the surface, This Life‘s Nicole Breen may seem like a control freak, but actress Marianne Farley says she immediately sensed there was more going on beneath her character’s uptight façade.

“For some reason, I just got Nicole,” explains the Quebec native. “I got where her pain came from, her need to be loved and be part of the family and just feeling like an outcast all of the time. I don’t know why, but it touched a deep place inside of me, and I really wanted to make her a complex character.”

Season 2 has been difficult for Nicole, as she’s been forced to deal with the thorny aftermath of her husband Matthew’s (Rick Roberts) affair—which resulted in a son. Things get even more complicated in this week’s episode, “Communion,” when Matthew makes one last ditch effort to win Nicole back.

“I feel like I was really lucky because I got to go through this incredible roller coaster of emotions,” says Farley. “It’s one of my favourite episodes to date.”

Farley—who will also appear in the upcoming CBC series Bellevue and 21 Thunder—joins us by phone from Montreal to discuss what makes Nicole tick and whether her marriage to Matthew can be saved.

What do you enjoy most about playing Nicole? 
Marianne Farley: I love playing Nicole because she is a bit of everything. She’s very emotional and she’s very much in control—or she tries to be in control. I don’t think she succeeds much. But that is part of her trying to control her emotions, but she can’t deal with it and have a perfect life. I think Nicole wanted to be a princess when she was younger. That’s sort of how I saw her when I read the first episode of Season 1. She wanted to have the perfect life with Matthew and, fortunately for me as an actress, that’s not how things ended up being. So I think the complexity of Nicole is really interesting for me.

Speaking of complex, Matthew’s betrayal of Nicole runs very deep. It’s not just that he had an affair with Beatrice (Victoria Sanchez), but that she had his child—something that Nicole was unable to do. What part of his betrayal is the worst for Nicole? 
For Nicole, the lie about the son is the worst part of it. In Season 1, she tells him, ‘I will accept that you had sex with someone as long as it’s over and as long as you want to be with me.’ But I think it’s the betrayal of knowing that he had a double life for seven years. I think that’s the reason why she can’t forgive him and she can’t let go . . . Her heart wants to forgive him, but she can’t. She’s really split in two, I find, in the beginning of Season 2. There’s anger, there’s pain, but there’s also love, so she’s lost. She’s trying to find her way back, and she can’t.

Last week, Matthew asked Nicole to search his computer, and she found nothing incriminating. However, she chose to move forward with separation plans. Why?
I think looking through his computer she realizes that whether she finds something or not she’s never going to trust him again. It’s really about the trust being broken. So I think at the beginning of Season 2 she’s taking baby steps and Episode 203 is that moment where she sort of says, ‘OK, I’m going to stop taking baby steps and start walking a little bit faster, because I can’t stay put.’

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Is there anything Nicole is waiting for Matthew to say that could sway her, or does she just need to sort the situation out on her own? 
I think she needs to figure it out on her own. She needs to figure out who she is. I think that’s the main thing. It’s like her whole universe, her whole dream life just fell apart and she’s trying to put the pieces back together, but it keeps falling apart. Because the illusion of it is not there anymore. She will never be the perfect wife, and Matthew will never be the perfect husband, and they will never have a perfect family because of this thing.

And I think there is also the fact that she wanted to be a mother, that was really important to her. And they couldn’t have a child on their own, so they adopted. Now Matthew gets to be a father and she is still not a biological mother and that’s very painful to her. It’s like it’s something that they will never be able to share, but now he has that experience with another woman. So it’s very complex . . .  I don’t think there’s anything that Matthew could say. I think she’s waiting for him to say something that will make her feel different, but there’s nothing.

What can viewers expect from Nicole in this week’s episode?
It’s called ‘Communion,’ and it’s the first time that Nicole faces the whole family. It’s the first time that she is sitting with Matthew’s family and she knows that everybody knows. So it’s a very hard moment for her and it’s very humiliating . . . It’s that thing when you realize that everyone knows your husband has been cheating on you, everyone’s known, and you were basically the last one to know. It’s like the elephant in the room that’s just very hard to live with.

You share some tough scenes with Rick Roberts in this episode and throughout the series. What’s he like as an acting partner?    
He’s a brilliant actor, very generous, very much in the moment. First day last year, we just clicked. And we had a sex scene that first day, which I think makes you feel like it’s us two against the world. So it creates that connection right away, and we’ve had that since the beginning and we’ve become great friends. We have the same way of doing things, and we talk a lot about the characters and the scenes. He’s the best scene partner anyone could ask for. It’s easy to be in love with him, and it’s easy to hate him. [Laughs.]

What’s coming up next for Nicole in Season 2? 
She goes in search for herself. She’s trying to find herself. She’s trying to find out who she is, what she wants out of life. She’s trying to redefine her life, if she’s not going to have this perfect relationship, this perfect family life. She’s also trying to find a way to forgive and move on, but that’s tough.

This Life airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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The Romeo Section

Link: Fei Ren talks character and craft in The Romeo Section + “Seeds of War” preview

From Heather M. of The Televixen:

Link: Fei Ren talks character and craft in The Romeo Section + “Seeds of War” preview
“The language was written so differently, without abbreviations, formally structured, and more period than contemporary. That’s another challenge. I feel like I’m doing a period piece and [I want] to make it natural and relatable to the modern world. It’s such a great learning experience.” Continue reading.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Link: The Brain’s Way Of Healing: TV For The Mind

From James Bawden:

Link: The Brain’s Way Of Healing: TV For The Mind
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a TV documentary as challenging as The Brain’s Way Of Healing.

This hourlong edition of The Nature Of Things premieres Thursday night at 8 on CBC.

As TV networks multiply and fight for ratings dominance any program that  assumes viewers are intelligent and demanding becomes ever more of a rarity. Continue reading.

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Featured, Shoot the Messenger

Shoot the Messenger expands its world in Episode 3

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Shoot the Messenger. When I made an on-location visit during production on Season 1, I learned it was about a rookie news reporter named Daisy who landed a big story. Though Daisy was excited to write it, she needed help and that was where her co-worker, Simon, came into the picture. I also knew a cop named Lutz was having a relationship with Daisy and corruption within levels of government was involved.

But man, Shoot the Messenger is so much more than that, something evident by the time Episode 3 had closed. Daisy got a crash course in just how delicate the information she’s gotten is to some people. It did feel like she was a little blasé about everything last week and she’s certainly been reminded of that after the man from the car followed her into Hassan’s apartment and demanded the cell phone. When Hassan said he didn’t have it, the masked man gunned down Avril. Guess that was the wrong answer.

Much of the episode was spent following Daisy’s descent into an alcohol-induced haze. Prior to that she’d met with Anthony Telpher (Rick Fox), a friend she made in rehab when they were both addicted to cocaine. And though the talk with him seemed to do good, Daisy promptly went back to Chloe’s and drank a bottle of booze while surfing the Internet and seeing the type of kid Khalid used to be. Daisy’s actions not only estranged her from Chloe but Lutz too, especially after he advised he’d be distancing himself from her because she knew the men he was investigating the deaths of.

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And then Shoot the Messenger curved off in another direction that involved Sam Charles being feted for the Prime Minister’s office and Eric Lawson’s involvement with gangs discussed. Lawson has got a stink on him and Phil Hardcastle (Maurice Dean Wint) doesn’t want any of it rubbing off on Sam.

The stink of another sort—sex—was front and centre by episode’s end, as Simon and Daisy discovered Orlandio’s penchant for sleeping with older women. The revelation he bedded Judge Reeves not only takes Daisy’s story into even more dangerous territory but it pretty much guarantees Kevin’s warrant won’t be approved.

Last night’s episode boasted oodles of slow-motion movement set to music and a particularly strong, deeply emotional sequence as Khalid was being prepared for burial. It lends a feature film feel to Shoot the Messenger‘s gritty storylines.

Shoot the Messenger airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC.
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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Secret Path: The Pathway to Reconciliation?

The opening segment of Secret Path, set to the haunting song “The Stranger” sung by Gord Downie, is perhaps the most illustrative for me. It juxtaposes Chanie Wenjack’s home, and his treacherous walk home. Comic artist Jeff Lemire’s use of colour was perfection. But what I found particularly refreshing was the lack of stereotypical representations. Chanie’s father was not the “wild man” that he and all of mainstream Canada were taught to believe. He was simply a father loved by his son, like fathers everywhere. And this is the secret. But I will come back to that.

Throughout Secret Path, Chanie is illustrated as a dark-haired boy clothed in nondescript clothing. A young, terrified and alone dark-haired boy. He played on swings like all children do, he liked to fish, like so many children learn to do. Even the scenes that illustrated punishment and abuse at the hands of a priest, could have been about any boy in attendance at any religious school—of which we now know there were many worldwide.

Following the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report, Calls To Action were made recommending mainstream Canadians learn about Indigenous culture. And why is this so important? It is not to make mainstream Canadians feel guilty—although we as a collective bear the burden of guilt—but rather to recognize the humanity of an entire segment of Canada that has been ignored, even denied, for centuries.

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With the gravitas the name Gord Downie brings to this project, this animation attempts to bring attention to the inequities present in the northern communities. Secret Path was not designed to teach the story of the Residential School System. That is told elsewhere. This project was, however, about honouring the life of a little boy, about recognizing who was to blame for the death of that little boy, and it was about reminding mainstream Canadians to be empathetic. Chanie, drawn as Lemire did, deliberately suggests he could be could be any little boy anywhere in rural Canada. He could be any child, living with happy childhood memories, any child with a family who loves him.

It is also important to keep in mind that while students in the RSS were being inculcated to believe they were heathen, dirty, subhuman beings not worthy of decent food let alone humane treatment whilst in the care of church and government, so too was mainstream taught the same. Secret Path is teaching us that for reconciliation to truly begin, all people living in Canada need to see the humanity in each of us. It is only with this acceptance that we can use that empathy as a motivation to build the bridges between cultures, from both shores. Chanie’s sister Pearl states, “As big as the world is, we are all connected in some way. I don’t know how, but I know that.” This is the very connection that the Canadian government and the RSS sought to destroy. This is the spark of humanity that is the key, the secret, to begin healing those connections again.

Will this be a project destined for classrooms everywhere? Perhaps. Regardless, it was beautifully structured, and Lemire’s work continues to mature. I was already a huge fan of his illustrative talents. Now I am more so!

What did you think of Secret Path? Comment below.

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