| Sometimes to get ahead, a midget needs to cop a feel. The other rules of show business may seem less skeevy, but none prompted Canadian actress Brigitte Bako to create her autobiographical television series, G-Spot.
Before that, Hollywood proclaimed her as the next big thing after a promising start in the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories. And like most "next big things," she soon found herself sloshing through corn syrup gore and prosthetic limbs on the sets of straight-to-video schlock like Die! Die! Die! and Primary Suspect. Upcoming scream queen. Female Victim Number One. Progenitor of the first progenitor of the B-movie actress. On the set of a failed pilot, Bako knew those titles just sounded nicer than failure. Her epiphany is capped by a midget standing in for her television son, who reached up and squeezed her breast. Thus was the genesis of G-Spot.
Bako mines her 20-year stumble through Hollywood for every breezy 20-minute episode. Spliced from the DNA of Sex and the City and Entourage, G-Spot does seem overly familiar – four gorgeous but aging women try to forge careers in Los Angeles while dealing with relationship issues. Bako, though, strips the wish fulfilment for something a bit more grounded. Not that this is a gritty treatise on the level of Man Bites Dog. This is more a fun romp, more silly and sweet than funny. Original? No, but it’s the big tub of comfort food for Canadian television, making it the top cable show in Canada and giving it a successful run on Showtime. Fast Forward sits down with the creator, writer and star of the G-Spot to talk about her life as an actress and why Canadian television is shit.
How was your career before you did G-Spot?
I couldn’t get arrested as an actress, I was broke, I had to rent out my house ‘cause I couldn’t afford to live there. I just got bludgeoned and killed in everything I did. I sat in cafés in New York and wrote my funniest episodes in my worst depression. I’m parodying these terrible, bad B-movies I did and was so devastated by and turned it into something I can laugh at.
What does the show bring to Canadian television?
Canadian television is very real and very gritty. We brought our version of glamour to it. When I sat down with the crew, I told them it couldn’t look like Canada. It’s LA. It has to be funny, bright and beautiful. They found a way to do that without a lot of money. Most people think the show’s shot in Los Angeles, but it’s not. It’s all over Toronto. We turned Oshawa into Bel Air.
How do you feel the show compares to what airs in Canada?
I personally don’t think anything is good in Canada. The nature of Canada’s television industry, it’s very hard to make something great. There’s no support and they make a lot of stuff in Canada to just make it. I don’t have any competition.
How do you feel about the controversy around the show receiving a supposed $2.3 million dollars in funding?
This show is one of the most popular out there. Honestly, this whole Canadian content thing is killing you guys. Nobody gives a flying fuck. Our crew and our actors are Canadian, the writer/creator/producer is Canadian. Why do we need to sit and talk about Canada? In the States you just tell a story. This is a story about a Canadian girl that went to Hollywood and didn’t make it. It’s certainly not about, "Ooo I love hockey." I don’t love fucking hockey, that’s not my Canadian experience. They can make shitty Canadian shows nobody’s watching and feel good where their money is going or they can make shows that will actually get bought outside of Canada. |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.