The YVR Screen Scene Podcast

Veteran actresses Gabrielle Rose ( The Sweet Hereafter ) and Camille Sullivan ( Intelligence ) like each other very much, and like to work together too. So who better to talk about the joys and challenges of collaboration than these two queens of the Canadian drama scene? In the second episode of our #IndustryBFFs series, Gabrielle and Camille reflect on their friendship and talk camaraderie, chem...

Knowledge Network is the public broadcaster in British Columbia. But what many in the public didn’t know until an equity audit laid it bare in February was that, in the past seven years, only 1.7% of the $2 million granted by Knowledge Network to filmmakers went to filmmakers of colour, and 0% went to Indigenous majority-owned companies. To put it in perspective, 1.7% of $2 mil...

Kathleen Robertson visits the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to talk about her years acting on Maniac Mansion and Beverly Hills 90210 and her current gig showrunning Roku’s hit series Swimming With Sharks . The last – a dark thriller – is a reimagining of the 1994 film of the same title, about a Hollywood assistant who turns the tables on an abusive boss. But this time, the Hollywood assistant and the a...

Charissa Barton is responsible for choreographing one of the most universally beloved opening credits sequences of all time: that of Peacemaker on HBO Max. Newsweek described it as “[probably] the most memorable opening credits sequence of any superhero show in recent years.” The Hollywood Reporter went even further, calling it “one of the greatest opening credits in TV history.” In the sequence,...

Let’s Make A Sci-Fi is audacious. The new CBC podcast follows three Vancouver comedians – Ryan Beil, Maddy Kelly and Mark Chavez – as they set out to write a successful, non-comedy sci-fi pilot with help from scientific experts and Hollywood screenwriting pros, including actor Rainn Wilson, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, District 9 filmmaker Neill Blomkamp, showrunners Jem Garrard and Si...

Lea Salonga is the beloved singer and performer who won a Tony Award for originating the role of Kim in Miss Saigon , and who built a global fanbase for her work as the singing voices for Jasmine in Aladdin and as Mulan in Mulan and Mulan 2 – work for which the Walt Disney Company bestowed upon her the title of Disney Legend. She was the first Asian woman to play Eponine in the musical  Les M...

Agam Darshi returns to the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to talk about Donkeyhead , the feature film that she stars in, wrote, and directed. Agam plays Mona, a failed writer who carves out a life of isolation while caring for her ailing Sikh father. When Mona’s father has a debilitating stroke, her three successful siblings – played by Stephen Lobo, Sandy Sidhu, and Huse Madhavji – show up on her doors...

Natasha Burnett plays Minnie Canfield, matriarch of the Canfield family, on Hallmark Channel’s When Calls The Heart . The Canfields joined the wildly popular family drama for its eighth season; over the course of 12 episodes, Minnie was revealed to be loving, fiercely protective, and level-headed – and fans, known far beyond their fandom as the Hearties, embraced Minnie and all of the Canfields, w...

Dan Payne is a versatile actor. From John Dover on The Good Witch to Traeger in Mech X-4 , from Beast in Disney’s wildly popular Descendants films to a high-powered real estate mogul in the first episode of Family Law , Dan’s handles comedy, action, genre fare, children’s entertainment, and drama with apparent equal ease. And he’s got five Leo Awards nominations – and two wins, one for Aliens Stol...

When actress-director Keegan Connor Tracy ( The Magicians , Once Upon A Time ) turned 50 years old in December, she vowed to take this milestone year to really sit in what it means to grow older: especially as a woman, and especially in the film and television industry. Keegan recently popped by the YVR Screen Scene studio to drink birthday champagne and join Sabrina for a fun and freewheeling con...

We’re All In This Together is a feature film about three sisters who struggle to find a way to work together when their mother’s long tenuous mental health takes her over a waterfall in a barrel. The sisters are each plagued by their own demons – their own insecurities, addictions, traumas, mental health woes, and issues with each other – but it’s only when they learn to speak directly to each oth...

In the first of our series of episodes featuring #IndustryBFFs, screenwriters Dennis Heaton ( The Order ; The Imperfects ) and Rachel Langer ( Transplant ) join Sabrina Rani Furminger for a rousing and insightful conversation about craft, community, collaboration, breaking into the industry, showrunning, bean bag chairs, and what r eally goes on in television writers’ rooms. Episode sponsor: Fish...

Kazumi Evans has worked steadily as a voice actress since she entered the industry at the age of nineteen. Her many credits include Monster Beach , Polly Pocket , The Hollow , The Dragon Prince , multiple Barbie movies, and Rogue and Boomer in Wolverine vs. Sabretooth. She voiced multiple characters on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic – and provided Rarity’s singing voice – and she voiced the d...

Actor Bob Frazer’s filmography is packed with ne’er-do-wells, evil puppet masters, and smarmy bastards. Bob was Roger Hayden, also known as the Psycho Pirate, in Supergirl and Arrow – a supervillain who could control the emotions of everyone around him. He was the Sourcerer, a criminal mastermind hacker, in the thoroughly entertaining (albeit divisive) ReBoot: The Guardian Code . He was a slimy lu...

Jewel Staite is the actress behind a veritable parade of dynamic characters, including the volatile and feisty Abigail on Family Law , the kind-hearted mechanic Kaylee on Firefly and Serenity , the brilliant and insecure Dr. Jennifer Keller on Stargate Atlantis , and a pair of sadistic magical twins on The Order . She’s also an entrepreneur, a mother, a wife, a friend, a fan favourite, and really...

Comedians David Milchard and Ken Lawson – AKA the duo behind David and Ken: Comedy with Music! – talk about comedy in the age of COVID, how comedy has changed, how audiences have changed, and what we lose when we don’t let loose with laughter. Episode sponsor: Fish Flight Entertainment

Rachel Nichols’ career story is packed with memorable characters from all manner of genre entertainment. She was Kiera Cameron, the ass-kicking cop from the future, on Continuum, one of the only locally shot sci-fi series to actually set their story in Vancouver. She was Alexa, the waitress who enjoys a birthday threesome with Samantha and Richard in an iconic episode of Sex and the City. She was...

Chelah Horsdal has been busy since her first appearance on the YVR Screen Scene Podcast some 193 episodes ago. That episode dropped shortly after she’d wrapped up her critically acclaimed role as Helen Smith on Amazon Prime’s The Man in the High Castle. Since then, she’s been seen in Ash , the astonishing second feature from acclaimed filmmaker Andrew Huculiak, as a woman who learns that her husba...

There’s been a lot of buzz about Portraits From A Fire, and it’s all well deserved. The feature film – which won filmmaker Trevor Mack the award for Best BC Emerging Filmmaker at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival – is a gutting, poignant, and funny masterwork, and it is finally available for all to see on VOD.  Portraits from a Fire centres on Tyler (William Lulua), a 16-year-old...

If there’s one thing we know how to do in Vancouver, it’s make TV movies. Whether we’re talking festive rom-coms, thrillers, or pulled-from-the-headlines dramas, Vancouver’s film and television industry makes dozens of these films each year for companies like Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix. This holiday seasons, tens of millions of viewers all over the world will carve out time in their hectic li...

This is the first time the YVR Screen Scene Podcast has dedicated an entire episode to a Christmas movie. But this isn’t your typical Christmas movie. This is a Christmas movie about an Indian-American family, and it stars a bevy of beloved South Asian Canadian stars, wearing Christmas sweaters and decking the halls like many South Asians do IRL all over the world. Baking Spirits Bright airs Novem...

Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe is beloved around the world for her portrayal of Rita Haywith-Dorman in the Signed, Sealed, Delivered series and films, about the eclectic and dedicated staff of an “undeliverable letters” office. Yan-Kay was only 15 when she booked her first acting gig, and since then she's appeared in an array of roles in films like Snakes on a Plane and Insomnia , and television shows like...

Kamala Todd is a Métis-Cree community planner, educator, curator, and filmmaker. Her film credits include  Indigenous Plant Diva ,  Cedar and Bamboo ,  RELAW: Living Indigenous Laws , and  Sharing our Stories: the Vancouver Dialogues Project . She writes and directs for children’s television, including the Indigenous science series  Coyote's Crazy Smart Science Show ...

Nhi Do is the definition of a versatile actress. In recent years, Nhi has kicked ass as a straight-talking, gun-toting spy in the award-winning web series NarcoLeap , sparked heartache and confusion for Mary Galloway’s Abe in APTN Lumi’s beloved IndigiQueer series Querencia , stirred hearts as a recently arrived refugee from Vietnam who bonds with an Indigenous family in Louisa Phung’s Hope and Gr...

Brian Markinson’s filmography is populated by meanies, baddies, ne’er-do-wells, and other assorted characters who live in morally ambiguous zones in shows like The Romeo Section , Mad Men , Continuum , Arctic Air , and The Killing , and films like Shooter , The Curse of the Jade Scorpion , and Charlie Wilson’s War . He can currently be seen starring opposite Jessica Matten in Tribal, the second se...