Nicholas Pinnock Plays the Role of Five Lifetimes, All in One Man, On the Tense CTV Legal and Family Drama FOR LIFE

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede Nicholas Pinnock of CTV’s FOR LIFE has some new and lucrative calculations to make after his visit to Bell Media Studios in Toronto on Tuesday. Inspired by the life of Isaac Wright Jr., FOR LIFE – which airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on CTV – is a legal family drama about a prisoner named Aaron Wallace, played by Pinnock. While serving a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit, Aaron becomes a lawyer, litigating cases for other inmates with the ultimate goal of securing his own freedom despite a wall of corruption standing in his way. When Pinnock was asked about the acting challenge of finding different layers with a character who rarely, if ever, has moments of levity, that’s when the math came into play. “It’s quite easy to do it all on one note, which is fine, which is capable, which is okay, but that’s not enough for me,” Pinnock said. “I wanted to find other levels within the emotions that he was limited to while incarcerated. I didn’t want to repeat the same beat episode after episode. There are nuances to the different types of anger within him, because not all of them are the same. And then you have the added nuance that I’m playing four characters.” Say what? Okay, let’s count them. “There’s Aaron the prisoner,” Pinnock said. “There’s Aaron the lawyer in the courtroom. There’s the Aaron that he is with his wife and daughter when he sees them in the visiting room. There’s the Aaron who is the prisoner rep with the warden. And there’s also the flashback Aaron. So actually that’s five. That’s five different aspects. So there were certain things I had to employ as an actor to make sure that all five elements were different, but we still saw the same person.” Playing five roles, huh? Shouldn’t you be negotiating a massive pay increase? “That’s a very good question … something that my agent and my manager need to be thinking about,” Pinnock said with comic thoughtfulness. “Five times my fee? I wouldn’t complain.” FOR LIFE, which debuted last week, never was going to slide under the radar, with the real-life connection to Wright, and the fact that Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson is one of the executive producers and also has a role. But Pinnock got an amusing early indication of just how much attention the show was going to get. “When the trailers came out, I started getting stopped and recognized from the trailers alone, before the first episode had even aired,” said the veteran English actor. “That has never happened to me before. That was a big surprise.” Ultimately, Pinnock is thrilled to be telling this tumultuous story about a man who is urged to be patient and play the long game, but you literally can see the frustration and impatience on his face. “Isaac and I have spoken about this – when you KNOW that you’re innocent, and you have a system that is designed to oppress and block, would you have patience?” Pinnock said. “Or would you want to do everything you can, as quickly as you can, to prove your innocence? Aaron wants to get out of there. I sure as hell would.” For a look at Nicholas Pinnock’s day at Bell Media Studios, check out the photos below:   billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv