2-day shoot for Drake's 'I'm Upset' video was an 'epic reunion' for Degrassi cast
'At the end of the day he's just the same old Aubrey,' says former castmate
For anyone wishing for a Degrassi: The Next Generation reunion, Drake has made your dreams come true.
In his new video for I'm Upset the Drake wakes up in the middle of the Toronto Raptors' home court at the Air Canada Centre to an alert on his phone reminding him of his high school reunion.
"It really was this epic reunion," said Sarah Barrable-Tishauer, who played Liberty Van Zandt on the show and who is featured in the music video.
Watch Drake's new music video below. Warning: strong language.
The video, which was filmed on the weekend of June 9 and 10, was shot on the same set as the long-running Canadian teen drama.
A group of the show's regulars, including actors AJ Saudin, Nina Dobrev and Stefan Brogren (who has played Snake on various incarnations of the show since Degrassi High in the late 80s) join Drake to party in the gym and literally burn the school down.
Aubrey "Drake" Graham got his start in show business playing Jimmy Brooks on the show from 2001 to 2009. He's rapped about his stint as an actor in a number of hits, including a line from Worst Behaviour: "5 a.m. then go and shoot Degrassi up on Morningside. For all the stuntin', I'll forever be immortalized."
"You never know how people are going to be 10 years later, but it just felt like everyone was the same," Barrable-Tishauer told CBC Toronto.
Barrable-Tishauer said Drake told the group that a large reason he shot the video was an excuse to have a reunion.
"Maybe you just fall into that old groove with old friends because you know you don't need to put on a face because we all know each other ... we were all in this weird place of being child actors and growing up on a film set."
The 29-year-old, who has carved out a career for herself in Toronto's music scene under her alter-ego DJ Me Time, and who also works as a marketing strategist, said it can be hard to always have fans "pigeon hole you as Liberty forever."
"This is an amazing thing that we did, but it's also nice to see where this experience has taken you," Barrable-Tishauer explained.
The cast started working together when they were 11-years-old, but Barrable-Tishauer says they have now all "found their own place" outside of the show, especially Drake.
"He was always listening to music, it was always something that was clearly inside him, and I don't think anyone of us could have ever really imagined what could come of that," she said.
Drake, as of last week, was able to get his 164th song onto Billboard's Top 100 list with I'm Upset.
"I think he really embodies artistry, I think he's really carved out his own genre, his own everything, his own universe," Barrable-Tishauer said, noting that she has been following his rise since the beginning.
But she says the fame has not overshadowed the person she met at theatre camp a year before filming started on Degrassi: The Next Generation.
"At the end of the day he's just the same old Aubrey."