Jane Hawtin Live -- March 1999

With Michael Riley and Kari Matchett

J Hawtin: Sexual tension, one-upmanship and the struggle to see who comes out on top. On Jane Hawtin Live, TV couples in a power play.

Voice: Stand by, Canada. Now you can talk to the newsmakers and have your say. This is Jane Hawtin Live.

J Hawtin: Hi, I'm Jane Hawtin. Later in the show, Mary Jo Eustace and her husband, Dean McDermott, will join us. Mary Jo is a writer, singer and co-host of the cooking show, What's For Dinner? Dean plays the handsome captain of the Hamilton Steelheads hockey team on the new TV series, Power Play. We'll find out what kind of power struggle's going on in real life. But first, we're going to face off with a couple who are always at odds on the show. [Clip from The Off Season] Joining us now are Michael Riley, who plays Brett Parker, the slick general manager of the Hamilton Steelheads and Kari Matchett, who plays Colleen Blessed, the boss who drives him crazy. Welcome to the show.

Kari: Thanks.

J Hawtin: You must have a blast playing these characters.

Kari: It's great. Yep. It's great.

J Hawtin: Do you really hate each other?

Michael: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Kari: I hate Michael. He's an awful, terrible person.

J Hawtin: Okay, now tell us more about the background of your characters -- I mean -- because as a woman, you're a pretty young babe to be the head of this hockey team.

Kari: Yeah. I mean, there's not a woman that who's the president in all of the NHL, which is basically what we're representing. And um--it's actually a thrill to be woman in this kind of position. I mean, this is the stuff you think of when you're a little girl. You think, I want to be an actress and I want to wear beautiful clothes and I want to have power, you know? That's an incredible thing to play and play with and to be working with. Michael and Gordon and -- it's a great theme.

J Hawtin: And I bet it was your dream to grow up and play a character who has to work for a woman. That's what you dreamed of as a boy, I'm sure --

Michael: No, I think it's two sides of the same coin, you know? Kind of a male-female versions of the same beast, you know? Their pasts were quite similar as they come to understand in the first season. They had some issues from their childhood that were similar so -- and although they don't speak about that, I think that kinda precedes them into every scene. So that kind of, you know, relationship they have with each other, I think is all fueled with that stuff.

J Hawtin: Now the funny part is that, Michael, you don't know a heck of a lot about hockey. You don't, do you? I mean, you didn't play hockey as a child. I don't know if you're secretly not Canadian or what's the deal here is but --

Michael: No, I'm Canadian.

J Hawtin: But fess up --

Michael: It was a necessary backdrop for growing up here, for sure. But I didn't-- it wasn't a sport that I kinda got into. I had kinda a crash course-- luckily the playoffs were going on when I was getting ready, so I had lots of friends who supplied the beer and pizza. They would, you know, sit me down in front of the playoffs and I would-- they would tell me everything I needed to know about the game, so --

J Hawtin: So what other kind of prep work did you do? cause I know you talked to a pal of ours, Gordon Kirk.

Michael: Yeah, Gordy. I sat with Gordon, who's a lawyer who represents Eric Lindros. So there were two sides-- I guess for me, Brett was composed of two elements. There was all the-- all that stuff, the business side of who he was. I met with Donny Meehan, who's a sports agent just to figure out, you know, what they do all day. Because it's interesting, you know, because we get into these scenes in the office and basically it's a scene going on but what are we doing? Like, who's getting the paper from where and what are the actual business machinations of the day? And so, just those kind of questions, they were very helpful with. And then, just building the actual guy. The interior of the guy. And he's pretty -- he has to sustain for a long time. He's not very well, so --

J Hawtin: So who is he modeled on, this sleazy general manager?

Michael: No one, I wouldn't say -- maybe a compilation of guys.

J Hawtin: If you knew more about hockey! Did that matter, or no?

Michael: No, I don't think so. I don't think that ever matters -- I mean I-I-it's like you can gleam information from different areas but ultimately, you know, Brett is a function of who he is and from scratch so --

J Hawtin: Now Kari, you on the other hand, came from a very small town, a five hundred person small town.

Kari: Yeah.

J Hawtin: Spalding, Saskatchewan.

Kari: Mm hum.

J Hawtin: So, you knew hockey, right?

Kari: Mmmm-yeah.

J Hawtin: Or maybe not.

Kari: Well, I knew, sort of, in my pores and in my bones but I didn't know, you know, the rules and I didn't know why they changed -- why they went on and off the ice so much.

J Hawtin: The blue line and all that stuff.

Kari: So I had to figure that out and my husband was very helpful in doing that but, you know, growing up in a small town, I mean skating-- the ice rink is the biggest fixture besides the grain elevator in the town so, you know, I would go and watch the hockey games and I skated since I could walk so it was a very natural thing to learn about and interesting, you know it was sort of about time that I got to learn about the reasons behind the hockey so--

Michael: And I think that the thing. Not so much the actual playing of the game. Like I say, it's a backdrop of growing up but I think like in the show, it's not a show about hockey. It's a show set in hockey, so, just the whole romance of the game. And Bill, one of our producers, Bill Laurin had this great line about growing up and being able to stay up, wrapped in a blanket and watch the third period as a kid, you know? And just these kinds of -- those Ken Dryden-kind of home games and that warm kind of -- it is a mythical underpinning of the country, for sure.

Kari: Yeah, it's poetry for many, many people, you know. For men, for years -- and now women are starting to play hockey, which I think is great. I mean, I wish I had but it wasn't really the thing to do when I was growing up but now.

J Hawtin: Goalies?

Kari: No! Figure skating was the thing that girls did but now it is and there's a real poetry to that game.

J Hawtin: You know what I love about the show? I love how Canadian it is. We've had so many years of Toronto and Vancouver being disguised as various, you know -- Seattle or New York or whatever. Man, this is Hamilton.

Kari: Yeah, we go to Hamilton to film it too.

J Hawtin: So tell me about that and the decision behind doing that, having that kind of attitude.

Michael: Well, I think, as you say, we've always disguised our Canadian cities as some some metropolis. Maybe set in Toronto but it's not really talked about so it could be anywhere. And this is definitely, you know, Hamilton is a character in the piece. It's Hamilton, Ontario. Bill was saying, I guess you could call it a destination piece. Like Hawaii Five-O was a show where every week, they took you to Hawaii and this is a show where every week, they take you to Hamilton, Ontario. I think that's-- it's a great idea. It is like a character in the piece.

Kari: And therefore, to Canada, you know?

J Hawtin: Welll let's have a look at what we're talking about here. Gordon Pinsent, who plays the owner, and I guess you're like a surrogate daughter to him, is that the deal here?

Kari: Yeah exactly -- when I was -- when Colleen, my character, was fifteen, her father died and Gordon -- Duff sort of took over taking care of me and putting me in leadership camps and sent me to university and -- of course I was a brilliant student.

J Hawtin: Of course you were.

Kari: And I became the president of the --

J Hawtin: So he brought you back to be president of the team.

Kari: Yeah, exactly.

J Hawtin: Because it's his team and he can do whatever the hell he wants.

Kari: And I'm so smart.

J Hawtin: This is Gordon Pinsent as Duff, showing Brett's girlfriend around Hamilton. [Clip from The Off-Season] So what's the reaction been from people as to how Canadian this is? No reaction at all.

Kari: No, there's been tons of reaction. People, my family, and it's not just because I'm in it, but people love it. And people on the street stop me and tell me how much they love it and how important it is that there's finally a show in Canada that represents hockey. And does represent Canada, as we were saying before. I think that's really important to Canadian viewers you know, to see images and likenesses of themselves.

J Hawtin: What is that? Does that mean we're maturing? That we can actually be on King of Kensington, a show that actually shows Canada, talks about Canada. We had it with This Hour Has Twenty-two Minutes and those are in comedy and that kind of thing but to have a drama?

Michael: I do think it's important. Yeah -- I don't know.

J Hawtin: Well, let's talk about your character and -- That's okay. We can forget about it. Very humble pie of you. Okay, we want to establish a bit more about your character, how sleazy he is. You want to set up this clip for us because there has been a, you need to tell the story -- There's been a fight in a bar and you've got a bad situation that you need to fix.

Michael: Oh, that's right. One of my players has broken his hand in a fight, with the cops, in a bar and so I get one of my other players to break his hand in a practice that the press is attending so that they'll see that it actually happened on the ice and not in the bar.

J Hawtin: Pretend it happened on the ice. This is from Power Play. [clip from Purple Hazing] Is that character named Ty?

Michael: No.

J Hawtin: That's what it sounded like. So in developing the story lines, do you guys have anything to do with that or is it like magic when you see the scripts.

Michael: It's magic. Little elves bring the scripts and--

Kari: And angels descend from above. The writers are great on the show -- I mean, the stuff that comes out of them is incredible. Every once in a while I will bring up something that I think wasn't addressed or just doesn't make sense to me and they've always, all of them have been very open to listen to that but for the most part, the scripts were all great and very intact.

Michael: It's a real dream scenario that way, you know? As an actor, you get into a series and I was a little gun-shy about getting into a series because it's a long time, one character, you know. You want a character that's interesting. You want great writers. You want people that you're going to work with and know there's no animosity. And this, all the way down the list, right the way through, it really is kinda a dream job that way. If you're going to spend seventeen, eighteen hours a day with people over the long run, you want the material to be good and the work situation to be good and creatively, for it to be great, and it fulfills all the stuff so I feel lucky.

Kari: Mm hum. I do too.

J Hawtin: That's great. Then we'll talk about the steam, shall we?

Michael: The steam!

J Hawtin: Up next,we find out why this couple is practically melting the ice on Power Play. [clip from Purple Hazing] We'll be right back. [commercial then return to another clip from Purple Hazing] Yeah, and that's when things started heating up on Power Play. Our guests are Michael Riley, who plays Brett Parker, and Kari Matchett, who is the boss of the Hamilton Steelheads. Now this must be -- take me through the progression. Right from the beginning, these two characters have the hots for each other or what?

Michael: Let's see.

Kari: Yeah, yeah.

Michael: No. Exactly.

Kari: Typical. So typical. Yeah, I think Colleen has a pretty strong sense that she's attracted to him but go there, you know. Admits it, knows it, won't go there. She know what kind of person he is and doesn't want to put herself there.

Michael: And I think Brett denies everything, even to himself. I think he knows he's attracted -- sure, she's an attractive girl but all that stuff is kinda subliminal and he -- to admit that to anyone would be kind of a psychological death to him, so I think he kinda just, you know.

J Hawtin: So this is a kind of Moonlighting thing, right?

Kari: Yeah, there's that energy there for sure.

J Hawtin: With these two strong characters who hate each other but still.

Michael: Like they say: they don't cooperate, they compete.

Kari: Yeah.

J Hawtin: But things progress through the season.

Kari: They certainly do.

Michael: It's so weird to be so far away from it but just think back on it but yeah -- we started in the beginning where we're on the same side basically.

Kari: Yeah, in the very first episode.

Michael: We're trying to sell the team to Houston. We both are.

J Hawtin: You're both trying to get out of this. It's a money thing.

Kari: Yeah, we've made a deal.

Michael: We've made this deal and something happens with Brett, there's pull back into Hamilton and the hockey. He's kind of emotionally pulled back to the town and that puts him on the other side of the fence where now he's going to stay and become GM and that puts them at odds.

Kari: Yeah, that ruins the plan so it's all over, in terms of Colleen.

J Hawtin: And then?

Kari: And then, just throughout the rest of the episodes, there's sort of slight comings together and then pulling apart. There's almost -- like almost glipses of humanity with Brett's character, Colleen almost wants to go there and then he does something just awful. I think there's even a time or two where you approach Colleen.

Michael: There's always kind of a -- they've never arrived at the same place, except for the beginning and the very, very end, where they're both -- the doors open at both times.

Kari: Yeah, there's a lot of hits and misses, you know.

Michael: She'll come -- Colleen will come and say she is attracted to Brett and he'll be like No, that's not-- and then by the time he thinks about that for a few days and goes back and wants to get together, it's too late.

Kari: That's a line from the show too.

J Hawtin: But this is what happens in the last episode. [clip from Waked at the Forum] Great scene! What are you going to do next season, though? Wasn't it Moonlighting where it killed that show when the two of them went to bed together? That show was killed by that. This is a risky thing that's happening.

Michael: That's not the only dramatic tension on the show. It's going to be like in the first thirteen where there's going to be circles within circles of them coming back and forth, I'm sure.

Kari: This is not the beginning of a great relationship, in terms, you know, of romance and travelling together or anything like that. I think it's the beginning of another series of --

J Hawtin: So we're not going to get happily married and have babies or anything like that.

Michael: No, that's the thing about series. As soon as Brett is well enough to have a relationship like that, then the series is over -- then there's no where to go. I gotta keep him as self-blind and dysfunctional as possible.

J Hawtin: And jerky.

Michael: Yeah, for as long as possible.

J Hawtin: So what's the experience been like for you, working on a series, because you're well-known for the other kinds of work that you've done, with the Geminis and the Genie nominations and it's a little different for you to be in.

Michael: Yeah, it is. And I think that's the thing -- the true metabolism of a series is you do have to kind of put on the blinders and, you know, just deal with one guy for that long, so the prerequisite when you're working on it and choosing the material -- and that's what was so great about this writing was that you're -- the necessity was that it has to be multi-faceted. It has to be something that I can wake up every morning and keep interesting and, you know, for me, as well as for an audience, you know, and he is a character like that. There's just so many territories to go with him. And so that was important to me. But it is a strange thing just to stay within one thing. I think it would be -- therapy for me would be to play another character, at least in the hiatus, like one other thing to jump out and play.

J Hawtin: And will you have time to do that? I mean with the accolades from Win Again and stuff like that. You wouldn't want to be turning down stuff like that.

Michael: No. You get to the end and -- thirteen episodes -- it is quite a work load. You get to the end of that and you do kinda want to just shut down for a little while, for sure. But I couldn't ask for a better opportunity. If you're going to do a series, and like I say, I was a little gun-shy you would -- this would be the one. So I'm really happy about that.

J Hawtin: Now what about you, Kari? People should know that you're playing older than you actually are. You're only in your twenties, right? And you--

Michael: Really?

J Hawtin: You're an old guy, compared to her. That Michael Douglas thing.

Kari: Remember that, Michael?

J Hawtin: But with your background in the Moscow Theater and all of this, this is gotta be -- is this where you planned to go?

Kari: Well, I didn't say When I'm in my twenties, I want to be the president of a hockey team I'm playing on TV but it was a great gift to get. I was thrilled. It is -- It's funny actually. I was sitting with a friend at a restaurant the day I got the call to audition for Colleen and she said What do you want to happen next in your career? and I said You know, I guess I want to be the lead in a series. That's what I want. I want that experience. I want that time to work with one character. I want that. And then I got a call. Bill Laurin called my agent that day. And we clinked our glasses to that and her name was Colleen.

J Hawtin: Well.

Kari: Well that was great!

J Hawtin: And the interesting part was that you originally auditioned for the part of Brett's girlfriend. Isn't that right? And so you ended up getting -- I gather they had to re-write the character for you because the character was supposed to be an older woman.

Kari: They had originally written it for a woman who was ten years older than myself. So they changed the backstory and made it more suitable to me and sort of aged me up a bit to early thirties and presto.

J Hawtin: And how do you like the stardom?

Kari: Um, I don't know.

Michael: It's Canada, remember?

J Hawtin: I know, but you still get recognized already, right?

Kari: Yeah, that's happened. It's great. It's an amazing thing to know that people are seeing the show and that it's reaching people. It's an incredible feeling.

J Hawtin: Well, congratulations. And I'm glad the show has been renewed and we'll look forward to it in rerun.

Michael and Kari: Thanks.

J Hawtin: Michael Riley and Kari Matchett of Power Play. This is a pre-recorded edition of Jane Hawtin Live.