'I will go where the best work is': Kim Coates on his role in the Canadian film industry

Kim Coates cared more about sports than acting, that was until he enrolled in his first acting class. "I took an elective class in my first year of university just to meet girls," admits Coates. His first role was as Balthazar in Romeo and Juliet, where Coates reluctantly donned tights for the school play.

Coates spent years in the Canadian theatre world where he was the youngest person to play Macbeth in the Stratford Festival. He eventually moved on to New York Broadway playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Coates says the best part of Broadway is that "it's New York, it's the lights, it's the cabs, it's the people. They dress up. They take it seriously. They love their musicals. They love their theatre."

"I went right from Broadway to Hollywood," says Coates, but his role as Tig Trager in Sons of Anarchy has made him a household name. "I passed before I said yes and he convinced me to stay because of the arc that Tig would become and the brotherhood and the humor and the pathos," says Coates on finally accepting the role of Tig from creator Kurt Sutter. Sutter felt as though the story of Sons of Anarchy matched that of Hamlet and that Coates' theatre background gave him the experience to take on Tig.

"I love coming home and I think Canada has some of the best crews ever in the world," says Coates on actively participating in the Canadian film industry. Coates will receive the 2017 ACTRA National Award of Excellence on January 28 and he says, "it's a flat out honour." 

*The full audio will be added to this post following the broadcast.