Tag Archives: Diane Boehme

Blood and Water: Fire & Ice’s Sean Baek: “It’s fun to explore that dark side of humanity”

Sean Baek entered my television viewing world through Killjoys, that most excellent space adventure created by Michelle Lovretta. His character, Fancy Lee, made an immediate impact with fans and, by the show’s end, he was just one of many fan faves on that fine program.

Since then, Baek has turned in memorable roles on The Expanse, Coroner, Private Eyes, Nurses and Utopia Falls. His latest gig? On Omni’s Sunday night drama, Blood & Water: Fire & Ice, as villain Norris Pang.

Airing Sundays at 10:30 p.m. ET, this season follows disgraced former Vancouver cop Michelle Chang (Selena Lee)—now a Toronto-based private detective—as she hunts down Norris Pang (Baek), the man who has kidnapped her daughter. Pang is also the mastermind behind a money-laundering scheme happening at the Xie family’s casino, where Anna Xie (Elfina Luk) is attempting to expand the family business.

We spoke to Sean Baek about his acting origin story, playing a baddie and, well, his facial hair.

Before we get into Blood and Water: Fire & Ice, I was going through your bio and saw that you were part of the Stratford Festival. Did you always want to be an actor? 
Sean Baek: Yes. My parents took me and my older brother and sister to a movie theatre. My formative years were spent in South Korea and I can’t remember if I was four or five or six. We all went to the movie theatre and there was this film about a family that gets separated due to poverty. I didn’t understand the entire movie, but I remember just being glued to the screen, obviously, because it was a young family, there were young kids in the cast. I was mesmerized.

Fast forward a few years, and I actually auditioned for a training program [at Stratford] called the Birmingham Conservatory. For five months, six days a week from 10 to 6 every day, you delve into classical theatre and classical theatre performance. You would have teachers from the UK, the Royal Shakespeare Company, people who’ve worked with Orlando Bloom, Ian McKellen and all the legends as well. The first time I auditioned for it, I didn’t get in, but the second time was back in 2005 and I got in. I was one of 10 actors that got selected from across Canada.

Those five months were the best time of one of the best times of my life personally because I’ve met a lot of great friends, but also professionally because I learned so much. I already had nine years of acting under my belt, small to medium-sized theatres and film and TV credits here and there. But, I’ve always loved Shakespeare and I wanted to expand my knowledge. A little bit of luck had something to do with it too, but I put in a lot of hard work.

Let’s go from the stage to the screen. Let’s talk about Blood and Water: Fire & Ice. Creator Diane Boehme told me how COVID-19 messed up the production schedule. Can you give me the backstory of how you became involved? It sounds like your character was one person in one iteration of the show and then ended up being the Norris Pang who we’re seeing now.  
SB: We were filming in February of 2020 and into March. I was cast as this one character at the time named Norris Morris, and it was more of a hands-on sort of bad guy, this henchman type. Before we knew anything, production was shutting down. I was playing this character, and then the actor playing the main character in the first block—because he was from elsewhere—due to travel restrictions [could not return]. 

It was a hair-pulling experience for everybody involved, to say the least. During the hiatus—we had to stop filming from the middle to the end of March until the producers figured out, ‘OK, we’re going to block out these days and weeks to finish filming’—they had to rejig. They amalgamated my original character and the other character, so it became Norris Pang. He became this dude who does everything and anything possible to fulfill his goals. 

As an actor, I’m assuming you like to play a variety of characters, but I love it when you’re sinister and Norris is a sinister guy. 
SB: Thank you. My wife said after she saw it, ‘Oh wow, the creep factor is high.’ I was like, ‘Well, I get paid to do what I have to do.’ It’s fun to explore that dark side of humanity. That’s the fun part because you get to explore the psyche of this fictional character. 

How do the hair and the facial hair play into the building of a character like Norris? 
SB: The reason why I tend to have my beard is that when I shave I look a lot younger than my actual age. There was a period of my career, between the early to mid-thirties until my early forties when I was old enough to play young dads just like other colleagues. But I couldn’t because clean-shaven I was too old-looking to be in college, but I was too young-looking to be a dad.

I went through a lot of frustrating time periods like that. Now I go out for dad roles and characters who have kids a lot. That’s the reason why I tend to have that beard, just so that I can look the age that I am.

Blood and Water: Fire & Ice airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. ET on Omni.

Images courtesy of Breakthrough Entertainment.

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Blood and Water: Fire & Ice’s Diane Boehme: “We’re going out on a high note. This is our best season ever”

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the television industry—as it has our lives—into disarray. It hit production of Blood and Water: Fire & Ice particularly hard, splitting the Omni drama’s production in two. That extended break of almost a year meant a loss of some actors to other projects, all of the locations to film in and some crew. But, as Blood and Water: Fire & Ice creator and showrunner Diane Boehme tells it, the pandemic was also a creative blessing.

“I had a chance to sit down and say, ‘You know, I think I’d like to see a little more of this character… what would he think about this, what would she think about that,’ and really catch my breath,” Boehme says. “I think that the series is richer for all of that input and the time we had to implement it. This might be our final season, but by god, we’re going out on a high note. This is our best season ever.” Catching her breath meant a massive re-write and a focus on the locations they did have—in Hamilton and Brantford, Ont.—a story that fit and juggling COVID safety protocol costs. The result, from the first two episodes I’ve seen, has made for an even tighter and engaging story.

Back for a final season Sunday nights at 10:30 p.m. ET on Omni, Blood and Water: Fire & Ice‘s final chapter of eight half-hour episodes follows disgraced former Vancouver cop Michelle Chang (Selena Lee)—now a Toronto-based private detective—as she hunts down Norris Pang (Sean Baek), the man who has kidnapped her daughter. Pang is also the mastermind behind a money laundering scheme happening at the Xie family’s casino, where Anna Xie (Elfina Luk) is attempting to expand the family business, much to her father’s chagrin.

Lee, as Michelle, is mesmerizing to watch. Her eyes emote so much of what Michelle is feeling—the pain of getting close to her daughter, only to have her taken away—and she wields a weapon with the best of them.

“She is so focused, a great leader and a lovely person to work with,” Boehme says. “She is a big star in Asia and I’m glad that our show had a chance to repatriate her back to Canada.”

Blood and Water: Fire & Ice airs Sundays at 10:30 p.m. ET on Omni.

Images courtesy of Breakthrough Entertainment.

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Link: Original Chinese Canadian crime drama Blood and Water returns, beginning Sept. 9 on OMNI Television

From a media release:

Detective Josephine ‘Jo’ Bradley (Steph Song, Outsiders, War) is back on the case as Blood and Water, the Canadian Screen Award-nominee, returns for a compelling second season, beginning Sunday, Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT on OMNI Television (check local listings). Starring Canadian Steph Song, the eight-part, 30-minute episode season sees another murder that spins Jo into a web of lies as she juggles family drama after returning home from China.

Season 2 rings in with a frantic phone call to Detective Jo Bradley from her friend, Teresa Fai (Loretta Yu, Save Me, Between), whose boyfriend Jimmy Lin (Andy Yu, Fargo, Bad Blood) is on the run after witnessing a brutal murder. But finding Jimmy will once again bring Jo and her partner Detective Evan Ong (Byron Mann, Skyscraper, Altered Carbon, The Big Short) into the orbit of Teresa’s father-in-law, ruthless billionaire Ron Xie (Oscar Hsu, The Recruit, Blindness) and the undertow of his dark secrets. The stakes escalate when Jo’s investigation forces Evan to make a fateful and, potentially, tragic decision.

The second season of Blood and Water features additional new cast members including Amanda Zhou (Fang Wang, Warrior) and award-winning Selena Lee (Michelle Chang, Spouse for House), winner of ‘Best Actress’ at the Los Angeles Film Awards, Los Angeles Movie Awards, and at the European Cinematography Awards. Selena Lee Sze-wa is a Hong Kong-born Canadian actress and former Miss Hong Kong 2003 contestant. Prior to entering the Miss Hong Kong pageant, Selena attended the University of Toronto, studying for a Bachelor of Business Commerce degree. She is now a popular actress with TVB (Television Broadcasts Limited) in Hong Kong. Additional returning performers include: Elfina Luk (Anna Xie, Skyscraper), Fiona Fu (Weiran Xie, Power Rangers), B.C. Lee (Victor Li, Almost Human, Fringe), Maria Ricossa (Professor Colleen Bradley), and Aidan Devine (Lt. Dan Barron).

Audiences can catch-up on previous episodes on the OMNI Television website and on Rogers on Demand.

Breakthrough Entertainment produces Blood and Water in association with OMNI Television, a division of Rogers Media. Creator and Executive Producer is Diane Boehme, followed by Executive Producers Ira Levy, Michael McGuigan, Nat Abraham, Peter Williamson, Al Kratina, and Steph Song.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Set visit: Cameras roll on new episodes of Blood and Water

I’m constantly amazed when I visit the set of a television show. Take Blood and Water, for instance. It’s easy to walk by the nondescript building in Toronto’s Liberty Village, steps away from a GO Transit platform, and have absolutely no clue cameras are rolling.

Yet that’s where Omni’s police drama—as it did for Block 1—is camped out for 18 days of production on-set and some location before completing filming in Vancouver. The warren of hallways and open spaces in the former Inglis factory (Lost Girl filmed there too) serves as the Vancouver Police Department where Det. Jo Bradley (Steph Song) is working her latest case.

Picking up a year after the events of the first eight episodes, Jo has got a new partner in Det. Evan Ong (Byron Mann) and new boss in Lt. Barron (Aidan Devine). Song says things get interesting for Jo during the next set of stories—referred to as Block 2 rather than Season 2 due to the way funding was spread out—because of her history with one cop and thoughts about the other. What is obvious about Jo is she’s in a better place than we last saw her. Not that Jo is hopping on stage to perform standup anytime soon, but her personal life isn’t as dour.

A poster in the Vancouver Police Department set.
A poster in the Vancouver Police Department set.

There is, however, another crime to keep Jo and Evan busy in the Mandarin, Cantonese and English-speaking series.

“This block takes place in Ghost Month, and is tied to the first block because a ghost isn’t necessarily a physical manifestation of somebody who is dead,” creator, writer and executive producer Diane Boehme says. “We’re going to play with that. It’s also about what haunts you. It’s regret, it’s the thing you did that you shouldn’t have done or the thing that you should have and the things that remain unresolved. All of our characters are wrestling with that.” Ron Xie (Oscar Hsu) is also back and dealing not only with the loss of his sons, but a power struggle within his company.

Ghost Month isn’t the only thing haunting the cast: the challenge of learning Mandarin and Cantonese is a constant spectre hovering over many. Dialect coaches help the actors and actresses with pronunciation and to ensure the correct phrasing is used.

“I wish they just wrote everything from the first block, because I still have those lines locked away somewhere,” Loretta Yu says with a laugh. “It’s definitely a challenge because I’m working in three languages this year. It’s been stressful, but really good, and I’m up for the challenge.”Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail