All Hail Cale! Elena Juatco Gets Laughs Playing an Intense and Intimidating Manager on JANN

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Jann and her manager Cale have been heading for a showdown all season on the CTV Original sitcom JANN. The comic tension basically boils down to this: Does Cale work for Jann, or does Jann work for Cale? “I know, right? It’s brilliant how Cale attains the upper hand in every situation,” agreed Elena Juatco, who plays Cale. “Isn’t that kind of what you want your manager to do? You want a manager who can lead, and gets the power, and can get you ahead. But sometimes that comes with other things, so you have to weigh the pros and cons.” The Season 2 finale of JANN, which stars Canadian music legend Jann Arden as a fictionalized version of herself, airs Monday at 8 p.m. ET on CTV. Having grown frustrated with her old-fashioned manager Todd, played by Jason Blicker, the Jann character hoped to push her career to new places by hiring the young, intimidating, cut-throat Cale. The professional marriage hasn’t been made in heaven, but to be fair to Cale, she’s only doing what she was asked to do. “Thank you – personally, I’d want a Cale, not a Todd,” said Juatco, who got her debut on CANADIAN IDOL, and has since built up a vast resume in theatre, film, and TV. “Todd is too nice. Cale was brought in to do a job. Now, does she do it in a way where Jann is able to authentically be herself, in her art and in her music? Hell, no! But that was kind of the point.” Cale’s icy demeanour was epitomized in an exchange she had with Todd earlier this season. Todd innocently asked her, “Why is your eye twitching like that?” Cale responded, “I don’t like to show anger, but it’s gotta get out somehow.” “That is actually one of the laws of power, to never show emotion – it was in the book that (director) Ron Murphy recommended I read, The 48 Laws of Power,” Juatco recalled. “That’s the hardest law for me personally, because I’m so emotional. In moments when I get angry – and I’ve been angry in my professional life, when I’ve had good reasons to get angry – I start crying! I need to stop crying when I get angry. Cale would NEVER do that. I need to be more like Cale.” There actually are a lot of people like Cale, if Juatco’s interactions are any indication. “The biggest compliment I’ve received is when people come up to me – and a lot of them are young people, publicists, managers, people in the business, or in the industry – and they say, ‘Your character on JANN? That’s ME,’ ” Juatco said. “And I love it! I say to them, ‘So you probably almost always get what you want.’ And they’re like, ‘Yup!’ And then they go back to their phones. It’s incredible to see, it’s my favourite thing. I was kind of expecting more people to hate Cale – but maybe I just have really great filters on my Twitter.” What does it say about society as a whole, if there are so many Cales out there? “I think it’s great,” Juatco said. “Cale has no fear. And especially now with this pandemic, everything is changing, and you want someone who can survive, and adapt, and learn quickly, and be on top of everything. That’s kind of what this millennial generation is. I mean, there might be some challenges with social skills. Everyone’s on their phones, and there’s even a way of flirting on text – I don’t know how that works. Thank God I met my husband before Tinder. So there’s always a flip side to the coin. But I love that coin!” So considering everything about Cale’s personality, what exactly would make her happy? “What a great question,” said Juatco, laughing very hard. “Love makes us all happy universally. Cale needs to fall in love, I think. And I just want to say that I am open to the love interest for Cale being Ryan Reynolds. We’ve saluted him on the show, and he has expressed the gratitude of being acknowledged. So if he wants to come and play, I’m game. Over to you, Ryan!” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv