Creator Kat Sandler Sets Up YAGA, Starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Hudson Williams, and More: ‘There Are Moments Where It’s Unhinged’

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede The new Crave Original series YAGA is a lot of things. It’s part horror, part thriller, part drama, part buddy-cop comedy, part sexual fantasy. Creator, writer, showrunner, and executive producer Kat Sandler said she has often been asked how she balanced all those things. But Sandler’s bold response sets the appropriate stage for YAGA, which premieres Friday, Oct. 23 with the first two episodes. “Balance is not the goal,” Sandler said bluntly. “Balance would be an amazing outcome, but I think entertainment is always the goal, and to get to that place, you have to try a bunch of different stuff. People ask the question of how we found the balance, and I don’t know that we found it every time. There are moments where it’s unhinged. But the fun thing is that you get to be surprised as a viewer.” YAGA, which is based on Sandler’s hit play of the same name, follows a private investigator named Charlie Rapp, played by Noah Reid. Rapp arrives in the small coastal town of Whittock to look into the disappearance of a young heir to a powerful fishery named Henry Park, played by Hudson Williams (best known to TV audiences for his role as Shane Hollander in Crave’s HEATED RIVALRY). Local detective Carson, played by Clark Backo, isn’t thrilled that Rapp is on the scene. In fact, Carson doesn’t even believe that this is a missing-person case at all, but rather another annoying instance of a rich kid embarking on a joy ride somewhere. But when the trail of evidence leads to a charismatic university professor with a taste for younger men named Katherine, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, a labyrinth of ancient magic begins to reveal itself. “I think you can see all of the references, and everything I’ve learned about storytelling, from the gritty detective movies of the ’90s, to rom-coms, to Disney and fairy tales, and it’s kind of a witch’s brew of my influences and references,” Sandler said. “It’s a pastiche of everything that I love. But the thing that I’m really hoping people receive is that it just doesn’t take itself too seriously.” Sandler added that adapting YAGA from stage to screen wasn’t as daunting as one might think, at least in terms of structure. “The play was written in kind of short scenes like that, and the way that I write theatre, it’s like you’re in one location, then you do a very quick scene change to a new location,” Sandler explained. “So it’s very much like television. There are quick cuts. That made it nice to be working in TV, to be able to actually just blink and be in a new place, and not have to change the set. Plus, the play was three actors playing all the parts, so in TV we could expand the world, with more characters, more suspects, more little subplots and storylines.” As for the impressive cast, Sandler admitted she has been a fan of Moss for a long time, and her participation in YAGA really helped to move the project forward. “I get so overexcited talking about Carrie-Anne, she’s such an earth mother, so grounded, and so powerful,” Sandler said. “She was the first ‘yes.’ She was the person whose name and following really helped us kick this into a higher gear.” And then with the addition of Williams, who is on such a pop-culture hot streak with HEATED RIVALRY, as well as the likes of Reid, Backo, Sheila McCarthy, Megan Follows, Ezra Franky, Patrick Gilmore, Katharine Isabelle, and Hiro Kanagawa, it was pretty much guaranteed that YAGA was going to get a lot of attention. What has that been like for Sandler? “It feels chaotic, but it still feels like a dream,” Sandler said. “I come from the theatre, so I love a fairy tale. Even before we had this huge reaction to it, I already felt like we were getting away with murder by having all of these Canadian legends sign on to do the show by virtue of, basically, the scripts. So it has felt insane from minute one, from when we got greenlit. For me to get to write every episode, and show-run your first show, based on a play that is your story, is incredible. It’s amazing to have the support of the Canadian ecosystem to do this thing, and do it in my voice. We even got to premiere a TV show at TIFF, in my hometown! So that all felt very right.” Indeed, this seems to be a unique moment in how the Canadian entertainment industry sees itself, and its place in the wider world, and Sandler is thrilled to be part of it. “It’s very Canadian to want to do a good job, but I think it’s also becoming very Canadian to take up space, and say, you know, ‘here we are, this is what we’ve made,’” Sandler said. “I think we’re leaning in very hard. Canada’s leaning in with elbows up.” For viewers leaning into YAGA, just be prepared for absolutely anything and everything. “How you make something different is that you throw a bunch of s— at the wall and see what lives in that world,” Sandler said. “I mean, as a writer, even I was surprised when some things worked and some things didn’t. But it should all feel unexpected.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv