Entertainment
Stay Tuned
By Lucas Lee published Jan 1, 2008
“The guy catching the sex toy,” says the publicist, pointing to the monitor, “he’s our lead.” The guy is David Kopp, 29, and in the television adaptation of Douglas Coupland’s novel jPod he plays Ethan Jarlewski, computer game designer, “gore specialist,” and straight man in the book’s offbeat cast of characters.
It’s the final week of filming, and the scene with the toy (“rubber dick,” Kopp specifies after a take) is from the 13th and final episode in jPod’s first season, which premieres January 8 on CBC. Set in Vancouver, the series chronicles the misadventures of Ethan and four other programmers at a fictional video games company called Neotronic Arts—along with his weed-growing mother and his father, an aspiring actor (played by Alan Thicke, of Growing Pains fame). It’s also about Vancouver, pushing, in a mix of drama and sitcom, the city’s hot buttons (condos, drugs, and immigration—that’s in the first episode alone). It’s quintessential Coupland, and has the heft to become CBC’s next hit.
“I couldn’t ask for anything better than where I’m at right now,” says Kopp, who’s appeared in 20 TV shows and six films since moving here from Calgary in 1998. “This is one of those parts you really click with as soon as you read it.”
The sex toy toss is shot again from different angles. Larry Sugar, one of the executive producers, comes over to the monitors to take a look and embraces one of the writers who’s dealing with on-the-fly script changes. “Have you met Daegan Fryklind?” Sugar asks, before launching into a debate with Fryklind on the difference between American and Canadian ketchup.
At 62, tall and hefty with thick blue-rimmed glasses and short white hair, Sugar is a father to the cast and crew, and to his son, J.B. Sugar, an executive producer, writer, and director on the show. It was Larry who won the option for Coupland’s hotly contested novel—perhaps partly because of a mutual passion for art. “I was excited just to go to Doug’s house,” Sugar says, recalling their second meeting in the spring of 2006. “It’s a treasure trove of his and other artists’ works. I knew a lot of the things that he owned and he liked that. Two-thirds of the way through the tour of his house, I turned to him with a thumbs up and thought, ‘Okay, we’re going to get the option.’” Three months later they were shooting the pilot.
