Do you feel this show is taking a bit of a subversive, or at least unexpected, approach to the traditional “crime thriller?”
STEPHEN: When I read it — and obviously I’m looking at it through the prism of, “I’m gonna play this character Henry [a police officer]” — I just remember getting to the end of the first episode and being like, “Is he a bad guy? What’s going on here?” And that’s far more exciting and intriguing than just your run-of-the-mill, two-dimensional, “This guy’s a good guy . . .”
We’re both big pro wrestling fans, and [in that sport] you’ve got the cookie-cutter baby face and the heel — but give me the Stone Cold Steve Austin character. He’s the hero of his own story and he’s gonna do things his way. “That’s the bottom line — ’cause Henry Roland said so!” But hopefully, as a viewer, people are watching it going, “Hank, don’t do that! No! Bad!” Then of course, he does it and it does go bad. It goes bad for everybody.
HAMZA: A lot of “sensational” things happen in this series, in terms of violence and drug trafficking. And much to the credit of the writer and the director — Graeme Stewart and Robert Budreau, respectively — they didn’t sensationalize any of these awful things. It was always about the experience of the people in it. In this type of subversive storytelling, there’s not a prompt to feel a particular way. These are horrible things happening and everybody in here is kind of casual about it. Well, it’s because you [the viewer] need to decide how you feel about that. These guys are gonna do whatever they do, and the music doesn’t inherently ramp up too much, there aren’t these quick cuts. It is very much done in this wide shot, Coen Brothers-y, Fargo-type thing, where these are terrible things that are happening and then people carry on with their day — because they have to. It’s like, “Yeah, they died. Very, very sad. Moving on” . . . because that’s the state that these people are living in. There’s so much at stake, they can’t linger on it. And we are not asking the audiences to do that either. It’s like, “Alright, next up.”
What do these two guys, these old friends on opposite sides of the law, have to confront about themselves over the course of the series?
HAMZA: I think Tommy Hawley is self-aware, to a degree where he knows how self-destructive he is. And the constant thing that he knows about himself is that he’s gonna survive. He’s made that decision. And the question he keeps asking himself, with success or not, is: “How many of these people am I going to entrap into my spiral of self-destruction to save myself?” Ultimately, that’s what he has to confront with himself. Really, he is very motivated to make it out alive and I think he’s willing to pay whatever price necessary. But it is something that he struggles with.
STEPHEN: And listen, pardon my language, but Henry has to s*** or get off the pot. He has to decide, “Are you a cop? Are you pretending to be a cop? Are you a good guy? Are you a bad guy?” Like, you can say that you’re doing these things because you’re being roped into this web of an old friend, but ultimately you’re the one making the decisions. So, what are you? And I feel like we get some resolution with the type of person that he wants to be towards the end of the season.
Stephen, was that ultimately the most intriguing part of this role for you — playing a cop who isn’t just a “hero,” who isn’t a paragon of righteousness?
STEPHEN: I mean, being the virtuous guy that always makes the right decisions is good in real life. But I don’t necessarily think that it makes for interesting television. If you want interesting television, make bad decisions. Be impetuous, be headstrong — be tied to your heart, not your brain. That’s what makes for interesting television. Don’t make the right choice.
HAMZA: I think decisions, they don’t have to be right or wrong. They just have to be made. How you handle the decisions that you end up making is what makes them right or wrong. Both of these guys make decisions that, in its aftermath, they would’ve made other ones — but they didn’t know it at the time.
Does the crime genre offer unique opportunities for a character study that you wouldn’t get elsewhere?
STEPHEN: [Laughs] Yeah, nothing like chopping up a body . . . spoiler.
HAMZA: I think when you approach crime, you’re exploring things that most people would never even dream to do. So it’s just like, “What if we take out that choice?” You don’t get to choose. You have committed this crime. Now, how do you behave? What led you to making that [decision]? And I think it does open up that character study because it’s no longer hypothetical. It’s on the page and it’s made real. Now what? What do you do from there? I think the scale is grander. I mean, you take romantic comedies . . . Are lives on the line? Probably not. It’s more like, “What’s my best friend gonna think about this?” The mechanism is the same, but the stakes are greater [in a crime thriller] — so the emotional response to them is largely going to be greater as well.
Is it a different experience working on a Canadian production like this vs. working on an American production — even one that’s shooting in Canada?
HAMZA: I think it trickles down from the top. When you have Canadian producers who are so excited about telling intrinsically Canadian stories, they don’t as much dismiss the Canadian experience — especially when all of the crew is [from] here, you have people who’ve got skin in the game. When you do an American film that’s being filmed at MELS [studio] in Montreal where everybody’s just kind of being like, “Alright, we’re guests here.” It’s like hosting a frat house at an Airbnb where they’re just gonna demolish the place. They’re gonna have a good time, they’re gonna get some great footage, but they’re not invested in what doing this here means to everybody here. They’re looking forward to getting out. Like, “Oh yeah, I’m not sticking around for the long weekend. I’m gonna fly back home.” Where, when you have the people at the very top being like, “I’m gonna walk home from this set” — to be able to connect with people being like, “I also know what it’s like to live here” — I think it affects the morale in a way that creates a bit more of a personalized and nurturing atmosphere.
Hamza, you spent four seasons on Transplant. Stephen, you spent eight on Arrow. Did getting to play one character for so long affect your perspective on and approach to acting?
HAMZA: Perspective? Not as much.Approach? One hundred per cent. The job will remain the same; ultimately, you wanna tap down into your own vulnerability, your own secrets, you have to bring a certain element of yourself into a character. And playing a character for so long . . . it’s like breaking in a pair of jeans. By season two, by season three, it just slides on and off like butter.
STEPHEN: Season one is Japanese raw denim [laughs].
HAMZA: Exactly. You’re just trying to figure out what movements are comfortable within this form. And then after awhile . . . it’s an old pair of jeans. I know them well, I know where the stains are . . . they know me well.
STEPHEN: For me, I don’t know what it was about this job [The Borderline] — and it’s something that I’ve carried into subsequent projects — but I just remember being like, “You know what? I’m gonna take some big swings on this.” I’m gonna trust our wonderful director, Rob Budreau, that if he needs me to rein it in, he’ll tell me. But I’m not at the plate trying to work a walk. I’m up there and I’m taking my hacks. And that resulted in a performance that I’m very proud of, personally. But also, it made the days a lot more fun. We weren’t nibbling around the edges. We were just really going for it.
The Borderline, streaming on Crave
MEMORABLE ROLES:
Born in Saudi Arabia to Pakistani parents before immigrating to Ottawa at age nine, Hamza Haq is no doubt best known for his breakout turn on CTV medical drama Transplant, playing Syrian refugee turned Toronto ER doc extraordinaire Bash Hamed. It’s a gig that earned him three straight Canadian Screen Awards from 2021-2023. You’ve also seen him opposite Russell Peters and William Shatner in quirky mystery The Indian Detective. Stephen Amell, meanwhile, rose to fame as billionaire by day, vigilante by night Oliver Queen on The CW’s Arrow, a role he played for eight seasons. From there, the Toronto native led Starz wrestling drama Heels and NBC legal dramedy Suits L.A. Next up, he’ll hit the beach to head the scantily clad ensemble of Fox’s Baywatch reboot.
CURRENT GIG:
Protecting and serving clashes with personal loyalty and long-buried sins of the past in this six-part thriller. After ne’er-do-well Tommy Hawley (Hamza Haq) is linked to a double homicide and a fortune in missing narcotics, Henry Roland (Stephen Amell), a small-town cop in Ontario’s Thousand Islands archipelago, is torn between saving his pal and upholding the law — while also fending off a dogged Border Patrol agent (Tamara Podemski) and a ruthless British drug smuggler (Minnie Driver).