Cast revealed for CBC's upcoming series, The Trickster
Newcomer Joel Oulette has been cast as the star of the upcoming CBC television series The Trickster, adapted from Eden Robinson's bestselling novel Son of a Trickster.
Oulette will portray Jared, an Indigenous teenager trying to keep his dysfunctional family afloat with his after school job and by selling ecstasy. When Jared starts having visions — of talking ravens and doppelgangers — he discovers his family's ties to magic.
Crystle Lightning and Craig Lauzon join the cast as Jared's parents, respectively playing Maggie, his fiercely protective, hard-partying mom, and Phil, who struggles who hold down a job.
Anna Lambe takes on the role of Sarah, while Kalani Queypo portrays Maggie's ex Wade and Joel Thomas Hynes plays her boyfriend Ritchie. Gail Maurice and Georgina Lightning are also in the cast.
Robinson's novel was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2017. It's the first in a planned trilogy and was followed by Trickster Drift, which won the 2019 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.
The show is being adapted by Algonquin-Métis filmmaker Michelle Latimer, who won a Canadian Screen Award in 2018 for the documentary Rise and Orphan Black writer Tony Elliott.
There will be six episodes in the series, which is slated to air in 2020. Production is currently underway in North Bay, Ont.
"What's magnificent and unique about The Trickster is that our characters defy the stereotypes of Indigenous people so often seen in the media — the romanticized, safe abstractions of 'dead Indians' invented by settlers," said co-creator Latimer in a press release.
"We are striving to reimagine these images by creating a more nuanced and authentic portrait of Indigeneity. Our sovereignty as a people is tied to story, because through our stories we can write our future."