Tag Archives: Louis Ferreira

Kim Coates on Season 2 of Citytv’s Bad Blood: “It’s epic”

When we last left Declan Gardiner, he was alone. Everyone associated with him in Season 1—Vito Rizzuto, Bruno Bonsignori, Gio, Nicolo Rizzuto Sr. and Gio—were dead and someone was, literally, gunning for Declan. In the season finale’s final moments, a gunshot rang out. Was Declan dead?

Nope. Declan is alive and well. And, when viewers meet up with him in Season 2 of Bad Blood—returning Thursday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv—he is still on his own. A lone wolf. Just the way he likes it.

Season 1 of Bad Blood was based on real life, the story on Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto (played by Anthony LaPaglia). It was adapted by Simon Barry (Continuum) and Michael Konyves from Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto’s Last War by Antonio Nicaso and Peter Edwards. But the sophomore eight instalments, written by Konyves, Alison Lea Bingeman and Patrick Moss, go off in a brand-new direction, following Declan’s adventures.

“There’s no book anymore,” Coates says during an interview earlier this year. “It’s our own highway. It was [Michael Konyves] who said, ‘I think we need to start present-day.’ The last thing we saw was Declan sitting at his cottage, finishing off his book. Bang! Bullet hole. Slow turn. ‘What the fuck is happening?’ You don’t know. So we start five years later. It’s epic.” (Coates has had an epic year or so himself. In addition to a Canadian Screen Award for his role as Declan Gardiner, he won rave reviews and the best actor trophy at the Dora Mavor Moore Awards for his role in Jerusalem.)

Half a decade later, Declan is running his own squad. That, of course, attracts some unwanted attention. Cue a new group of mafiosos from Calabria, Italy, to Canada in the form of twins Teresa (Anna Hopkins) and Christian Langana (Gianni Falcone). Once they arrive, the Langanas present themselves to Hamilton, Ont., brothers Domenic (Louis Ferreira) and Enzo Cosoleto (Daniel Kash) and their sons, Luca (Franco Lo Presti) and Nats (Dylan Taylor). Together, the sextet takes aim at Declan. Meanwhile, the Organized Crime Task Force gets ready to take everyone down with the help of a confidential informant. Although he prefers to work alone, Declan realizes that, in order to remain on top, he’ll need to enlist some help. To do that, he partners with Rose Sunwind (Sharon Taylor).

“My world meets their world and it comes together,” Coates says. “This is going to be bigger than the first season.”

Like Season 1, the second of Bad Blood was filmed in and around Sudbury, Ont., and Montreal. That meant a return to the cold Coates dealt the first time around. And while he hails from Saskatoon, Coates admits the years in Hollywood have had a dampening effect on his endurance with dropping mercury.

“We were in Sudbury and Montreal in November, December, a bit of October,” Coates says with a smile. “We got all kinds of different patterns. We’re all Canadian, but I’m a baby now. I don’t like the cold. I’ve become soft. Don’t tell my buddies.”

Bad Blood airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv.

Images courtesy of Rogers Media.

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Bad Blood welcomes new blood for Season 2 of the City original series

From a media release:

With cameras now rolling on eight all-new 60-minute episodes of the critically acclaimed original drama Bad Blood, City announced today Season 2 casting for the series’ highly anticipated return this fall. Star Kim Coates reprises his role as Canada’s favourite multifaceted mobster, Declan Gardiner, helming a dynamic new ensemble cast, featuring Louis Ferreira (Breaking Bad, S.W.A.T), Anna Hopkins (Shadow Hunters), and Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp).

Season 2 picks up five years after Rizzuto’s death and his former right-hand man, Declan Gardiner (Coates), is the reigning king of the Montreal drug trade – that is, until a new breed of mafiosos arrive from Europe to wage war in an attempt to wrestle the city from his grasp. Declan comes up against rivals, both old and new, who want to start dealing more dangerous substances; meanwhile, the Organized Crime Task Force gets ready to take everyone down with the help of a confidential informant. Although he prefers to work alone, Declan soon realizes that, in order to remain on top, he’ll need to enlist some help.

Ready to go to war with Declan are his enemies, Hamilton’s Cosoleto brothers, Domenic (Ferreira) and Enzo (Daniel Kash,In Contempt, The Strain), and their sons, Luca (Franco Lo Presti, Letterkenny, Schitt’s Creek) and Nats (Dylan Taylor, Rogue, Covert Affairs).

On the opposite side of the law is a Senior Agent in the Organized Crime Task Force, Nellie Bullock (Lisa Berry, 19-2, Supernatural), who is working her confidential informant, Nats’s wife, Valentina Cosoleto (Scrofano). But things turn explosive when Declan refuses an offer to partner with the imported power duo and sultry Langana twin siblings, Teresa (Hopkins) and Christian (newcomer Gianni Falcone). Left with no other choice, Declan looks to partner with an unlikely ally, Rose Sunwind (Sharon Taylor, Bellevue, Ghost Wars), and feels obliged to take a friend from his past, Reggie Ross (Ryan McDonald, Fringe), under his wing.

Bad Blood is produced in partnership with New Metric Media and Sphère Média Plus, in association with distributors DHX Media and Skyvision, and with the financial participation of confirmed partners, Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation, the Independent Production Fund, and the Canada Media Fund. Executive producers are Mark Montefiore (Letterkenny, What Would Sal Do) for New Metric Media and Josée Vallée (19-2, This Life) for Sphère Média Plus. Michael Konyves (Barney’s Version, Last Knights), who received a CSA nomination for Best Writing, Drama or Limited Series, returns as showrunner. Kim Coates also serves as producer and received a CSA nomination for Best Lead Actor, Drama or Limited Series, for his role in Season 1. Paula J. Smith (Blood and Water, The Beaverton) is Supervising Producer. Directors include Jeff Renfroe (Cardinal, Rogue) and Molly McGlynn (Mary Goes Round, Working Moms).

Filming is taking place in both Sudbury and Montreal, and surrounding areas. Additional broadcast details will be announced at a later date.

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Preview: Travelers closes in on Season 2 finale with “Update” and “21C”

With just one more week until Travelers‘ Season 2 finale, Showcase has gifted fans with back-to-back episodes this Monday and next. Yup, that’s four jam-packed instalments in just 14 days. Clearly, we all made it onto Santa’s “nice” list!

And while we’re thankful for so much Travelers, that means things are quickly coming to a close and there is still a lot to cover story-wise. How will Philip continue to be helpful to the team now that his knowledge is no longer valid? What will happen to Grace? Is Kat going to be OK? Will Marcy seek out the memories she lost when Grace reset her?

Here’s what Showcase has revealed about Monday’s first episode, “Update,” written by Pat Smith and directed by Amanda Tapping:

Philip’s timeline receives an update with some unwanted side effects, Trevor makes a disturbing discovery about his host’s past, and MacLaren deals with the return of a traveler he thought had gone away for good.

Here’s what the network says about the second instalment, “21C,” written by Brad Wright and directed by Will Waring:

While MacLaren, Carly, Trevor, and Philip work with another traveler team to protect a child important to the future, Marcy takes measures to remember her past life – but uncovers more than she bargained for.

And we’ve some info on both episodes after we watched screeners. Bonus: we’ve got some sweet images to share too!

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Rick Hall returns
Yup, that’s Motive alum Louis Ferreira turning in another stellar performance as the man who wanted to take over running MacLaren’s team. The last time we saw Rick he’d been arrested. I love it when Mac goes head-to-head with someone over loyalty to his squad and we get some great footage between to these two as Rick plots a little payback with help from Luca (Douglas Chapman). What Rick does is shocking, terrible and made me hate him even more.

Philip receives an update
I don’t want to give anything away regarding this scene and what it means going forward, but Amanda Tapping did a beautiful job filming it, the soundtrack is sublime and Reilly Dolman brought a tear to my eye with his performance.

Trevor gets an education
It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Kyle (Dylan Playfair) and he shows up to fill in some blanks with regard to what the pair endured while playing on the football team. We love Playfair on Letterkenny, but it’s nice to see him in a meaty dramatic storyline too.

David does a good deed
We love David, and his actions in “Update” and “21C” only further those feelings.

A Continuum star drops by
Oh, Omari Newton, how we’ve missed you! Newton appears in “21C” in a key role linked to Marcy’s past.

Vincent re-appears
It’s been a few weeks since Enrico Colantoni was seen on Travelers; he guests in the second episode on Sunday in a truly “Holy crap!” bunch of moments.

Travelers airs back-to-back episodes this Monday and next at 9 p.m. ET and 10 p.m. ET on Showcase.

Images courtesy of Jeff Weddell for Corus.

 

 

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This Life’s Louis Ferreira: “David has something to prove”

Louis Ferreira has been a near-constant presence on our TV and film screens for decades, appearing in everything from Stargate Universe to Breaking Bad to Saw IV , but he doesn’t talk to the press much.

“I usually don’t do a lot of these,” he admits.

That’s a shame, because from the moment the Portuguese-Canadian actor answers his cell phone on a busy Vancouver street—his warm, gravelly voice instantly familiar—he is open and charming, talking easily about spirituality and politics before we get to the crux of our chat: discussing his role as Natalie’s (Torri Higginson) ex-husband David on the CBC family drama, This Life.

David, a deadbeat dad who only resurfaced once he learned his ex-wife had terminal cancer, could have been a thankless role for any actor to take on. But Ferreira says he was eager to play the part.

“I think what David represents is something that I believe in strongly, which is fathers doing right by their children, ultimately,” he explains.

He also says This Life is a hallmark for what Canadian TV is capable of.

“I was actually impressed with what CBC and Canada have done,” he says. “It’s a very well-done show. I was really proud to be part of it, to be honest.”

In an exclusive interview, Ferreira, who also has a recurring role on Space’s Aftermath, tells us more about David’s motivations, his working relationship with Torri Higginson, and wrapping popular CTV series Motive earlier this year.

How did you first become involved with This Life?  
Louis Ferreira: I think we had someone on the first season of Motive that knew me and asked about me, I think, through Kristin Lehman and was like, ‘What’s he like?’ and she was like, ‘Nice.’ I think that’s kind of where it started, and then from there the part came to me. And there was just that last episode of the first season, where [the creators of This Life] were like, ‘If it goes, there’s going to be a journey with him.’ Based on what they were telling me about the character, the ex who comes back, I was like, ‘Oooh.’ There are certain things that speak to me personally, and David was one of those stories. I was immediately interested, I was all over it, to be honest.

What were your early impressions of David, who is a character who comes with a lot of baggage?
I never thought of it as a guy with baggage, which is something we all have in all degrees of weight, but there was the opportunity to redeem. I love redemption. I love evolution. I love the idea of people coming to epiphanies in their lives and then changing them. I love the u-turn, and that’s what I saw in David right from the get-go, that this man had had some version of an epiphany and was going to come back and do right by his children because he acknowledged that he’d done wrong by them.

When I spoke with Torri Higginson earlier in the season, she said she was upset when she learned David was coming back into Natalie’s life.
I think that’s why Torri and I work together well. We’ll have discussions on set before we roll. It’s kind of a he said, she said, and she’ll state her piece, ‘Well, he did this,’ and I’ll be like, ‘Yes, but she….’ and it becomes almost like a therapy session before we shoot the scene. And we’ve done it several times, and it’s been very helpful, I think, for both of us because we’re able to see and feel each other’s hearts on the situation, and I think it informs the scene sometimes.

So you have a very interactive approach to your scenes together?
Yeah, for sure. I think absolutely we do. And I think we’re both journeymen in the business, and I think there is immediately a respect for that aspect of it, and I think we both sort of immediately connected because she was so rooted in that feeling of what she had going in, that, ‘Why is he coming back?’ and I felt that right away. For me, it was like, not only am I going to come back, but I’m going to prove to you that evolved potential that you saw back in the day that I probably could have been, I now have, in fact, become . . . David’s got something to prove.

Do you think David would have eventually returned on his own if Romy hadn’t called him last season to tell him Natalie was sick?
Yes. I think that the timing with Natalie’s illness, I’d like to imagine that it wasn’t about that, but it was the coincidence of where David got to in his life and how the universe sometimes works in people’s lives, where timing sometimes lines up. Sometimes it’s neither good nor bad, it’s just what it is. I think in this particular case, it was the trigger. I think when he got the phone call from Romy, it was certainly the thing that made him go, ‘OK, that’s a sign and I need to listen to it,’ because he was at that point in his life. So that’s probably what kickstarted it, but certainly going back was something that was on his agenda for quite a while. It’s something that he had to do.

It’s interesting to think about [David’s] younger kids and the older kids in terms of that whole thing of when we’re kids and we fall and it’s like, ‘Oh, no big problem,’ and we get back up. But as we get older, it gets harder and harder. It’s almost the same thing that the youngest of his children is able to be more, perhaps, forgiving, be more open, which is a really beautiful quality. But then as life happens, and egos age and get more jaded, it’s more difficult to do those very things that we did when we were younger, which is to forgive easily and love easier.

I think David has a real soft spot for Romy, because I think he can see with her the hurt that’s inside there, and I don’t think that would make any man—who’s a real man—feel good about himself, and I think that also drives David.

This Life 204

Last week, David’s second wife, Kate, tells him that she won’t move back to Montreal, which means he’ll have to try to be a father to two families in two locations. Is that something he is capable of now?
David, back in the day, was probably under the bad boy category, so I think now he’s probably some version of a reformed bad boy. But now I think he’s gone into a whole other level, as we do when we get older, and hopefully you get a little bit more into a context of spirituality or things that matter more to you. I like what they wrote in the car, I think he said to Kate, ‘The reality is that I’m always going to love the mother of my children. That doesn’t go away. She’s the mother of my children. How could I not?’ That’s a mature statement.

The other thing I liked about it, about [Natalie] being the mother of my children and me having another family, is that also becomes [Kate’s] responsibility, and it should have been from the get-go. When people with kids move into another relationship, it’s absolutely crucial that they understand that their children come first in a certain way, and they are part of it. It’s not just my moral responsibility, it’s the responsibility of the person who wants to share my life with me. It’s also on them, and that’s true partnership in terms of a healthy relationship. So David is now going, ‘OK, this is healthy, and this is not. And I will choose to be healthy or at least try.’

Just a couple of episodes ago, Natalie and David kind of had that one thing that happened, that one-off [where they sleep together], and you just sit there going, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not good.’ That probably shouldn’t have happened. And I loved that fact that it happened and was never mentioned again, and it’s our imperfections that make things interesting. But at the same time, I do believe that, in his heart, David is trying to do and wanting to do right by his children first and his families. And in this particular case, this is a man with two families.

Motive ended its four-year run in August. Were you happy with the way the series wrapped?
We just had the greatest group of people for four years. It was one big family, and we’re all still very, very close. It couldn’t have been a more enjoyable experience. Truly. From top to bottom, it was just one of those things where everything was right.

Do you keep in touch with the cast?
I just saw Kristin two days ago. We went out for coffee, and she’s just onto a new show now, a big show coming out next year, and she’s doing well, and Brendan [Penny]’s doing great, and I just talked to Lauren [Holly] yesterday, so we’re all tight. But beyond the cast, with that crew—it was just one of those things where everything was just easy and right and no egos and just working together. It was one of those rarities, and we’re all grateful for it.

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

Images courtesy of CBC.

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