What Defines a Person, Beyond Where They Grew Up? That’s The Big Issue in THE BORDERLINE, Says Graeme Stewart

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede   There’s a brief but intense confrontation in an early episode of THE BORDERLINE that neatly showcases the pressure points that are at play. The new crime drama is set in a riverside town in the Thousand Islands region of Ontario (basically where Lake Ontario becomes the St. Lawrence River, with the Canada-U.S. border down the middle). A Canadian Border Intelligence Agent named Erica Ross, played by Tamara Podemski, is growing suspicious of all the connections she’s discovering between the active criminal community and the local police force. “There are a lot of coincidences … ” Agent Ross begins, before Officer Henry Roland, played by Stephen Amell, rudely cuts her off by screaming, “and it’s a small f—ing town!” Officer Roland’s combination of aggressiveness and defensiveness is at the heart of THE BORDERLINE, which premieres in the coveted time slot following SUPER BOWL LX on Sunday, Feb. 8 on CTV and Crave. Subsequent episodes will stream Fridays on Crave, beginning Feb. 13. “A big part of the show is the idea of what defines you as a person, beyond just the people that you surround yourself with in your everyday life,” said Graeme Stewart, creator of THE BORDERLINE. “It also relates to the place that you come from, and the history that you share with certain people from certain backgrounds in the area that you grew up in. I think it’s a bit of a conflict of interest, and as you can see in the show, that definitely becomes a bigger and bigger conflict as the story goes on.” The six-episode series begins with Henry finding evidence that links some missing illegal substances to his childhood best friend Tommy Hawley, played by Hamza Haq. Henry embarks on an impromptu mission to save his friend, but it doesn’t take long for his plan to start unravelling, especially with Agent Ross nosing around. Meanwhile, a ruthless British crime family led by matriarch May Ferguson, played by OSCAR® and EMMY® nominee Minnie Driver, is also on the hunt for the missing drugs – and, of course, Tommy. Katia Edith Wood, Jeremy Watson, Kate Corbett, Anna Douglas, Thomas Craig, Christopher Heyerdahl, and Diego Klattenhoff round out a very deep cast of familiar faces and talented newcomers. “The show went through many versions and iterations in its development and creation, and it definitely evolved a lot, but a lot of the characters were there from the start,” Stewart explained. “Stephen (Amell) was definitely at the top of the list, and he was the one that really kind of solidified things when he read the script and was interested. He was the earliest attached actor for us, and was so enthusiastic and great throughout the process, really supportive of the story, and eager to dive into the Henry character. Stephen was the one we were writing towards, and hoping to get.” Stewart continued, “our director Rob Budreau, who’s fantastic, has a pretty vast history of filmmaking, so he had a few people that he was interested in. Hamza (Haq) had worked with Rob in the past, and Hamza was obviously on my radar as one of the strongest Canadian actors emerging in the industry. So as soon as he was interested in the show, there was a pretty immediate excitement there. Tamara (Podemski) is somebody I’ve wanted to work with for a long time. And Minnie Driver is Minnie Driver.” There are no clear-cut heroes among the characters in THE BORDERLINE. Everyone has some mud on their shoes. And even the one person who has a fresh set of eyes on what’s going on – Podemski’s Agent Ross – isn’t above making naive choices, partly based on her own loneliness. “It was always by design that we’d be willing to take things a little further away from just the classic hero-villain storylines,” Stewart said. “And I think Tamara Podemski’s character is the outsider coming in with no burden of the past, or relationships, or history of the place. She can ask, ‘what is really going on here? Who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys?’ But she’s also trying to find her way into that history, into the old-boys club, and there is that loneliness. I think that’s an under-explored area for a lot of police officers, the isolation you feel serving a community, but not quite being of it, or in it, and being a bit of an antagonist. That’s really interesting fare for all the police officers and agents in the show, but it definitely sticks out more for her than the others.” Stewart has a personal connection to the Thousand Islands, as he visited his grandfather in the region for many years. But he knows that the vibe in many border towns has changed, and continues to change. “It’s one of those things where you can’t really take your eyes off the news at the moment, because all these borders are definitely full of intrigue right now,” Stewart said. “Our show is not political, but because we’re having this moment, it’s interesting to think about whatever might come next. And not just for a town like the one in the show, but also just in the way things are operated. In the general sense, everything seems susceptible to a bit more dirty work. And yeah, this is a show that has that kind of DNA built right into it.”   billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv