Season one was Crave’s top Canadian series. What does that mean to you?
The response was better than anybody anticipated . . . It was weird; I’m so used to being at an airport and people calling out, “Ricky!” Being called “Todd” a few times was pretty cool.
People love how authentic the show is, how funny it is and how much heart it has.
Would you say The Trades explores a way of life we don’t tend to see on TV?
Absolutely. I’m actually kind of shocked it’s never been done before. But it’s not an easy thing to capture, I guess. We had some real tradespeople; Ryan J. Lindsay, the creator, two of his brothers were in the initial writing rooms, so we picked their brains . . . There are so many blue-collar workers out there, and it’s nice to be able to tell some of their stories.
What sort of personal journey does Todd go on in season two?
He starts out on the pipeline. He left the refinery to do his own thing and get away from it all with his friend Backwoods. But there’s a bunch of drama going on back at the refinery and with his family, so he ends up going back for what he thinks is two or three days — and he actually becomes the general foreman of the refinery. [But] people were upset that he left them all, so he has to make peace with everybody . . . and he ends up finding a love interest as well.
Why exactly did Todd feel the need to leave Conch Industries for the pipe?
He thought he needed change — and part of it was probably financial — but what it really did was give him an appreciation to love what he had, to love the people that were in his life. He was missing all that on the pipeline.
Did you tweak the show’s formula at all between seasons one and two?
It is a question of feeling things out. Season one gave us a pretty good idea; a lot of it worked, but some of it didn’t work . . . In season one, in some cases, we may have had too much heart. When it’s necessary, you bring in those moments, but the show is about the edginess and the comedy more so than constantly having these “balancing it out with heart” moments.
Is it still baffling to think of how Trailer Park Boys turned from this little-show-that-could to an iconic piece of Canadiana?
It’s surreal. Next year’s going to be the 25th anniversary. It was always so culty, then it just sort of exploded. I never realized until we started touring around the world and we had fans everywhere . . . With that show, and with Trades as well, people can just relate to the characters. People know people like that all over the world.
Have you ever met someone and been shocked they were a Boys fan?
[Laughs] My favourite was a group of seven or eight nuns came up and talked about how much they love the show. I was in disbelief.
What’s it been like to watch the TV world expand and evolve so immensely over the past 24 years?
It’s exciting. We have so much talent, especially in the comedy world. Canadians have the best sense of humour, and I wouldn’t trade that. The landscape has definitely changed, but when it comes right down to it, laughter is still the best medicine — and us Canadians, I think, provide the best laughs in the world.
The Trades, streaming on Crave
MEMORABLE ROLES:
Moncton-born, Dartmouth-raised Robb Wells first left his mark on the Canadian entertainment landscape back in 2001 — playing foul-mouthed, rum-and-Coke-swillin’ ex-con Ricky on Trailer Park Boys, a mockumentary following the lovable ne’er-do-wells of Nova Scotia’s Sunnyvale Trailer Park. More than just a hit, the show has become a truly indelible part of our home and native land’s popular culture — yielding several movies and a Netflix revival, with more shenanigans reportedly to come.
CURRENT GIG:
These days, Wells takes the lead in another homegrown comedy. Now wrapping up season two, The Trades follows a small-town refinery welder braving the harsh realities and absurdities of blue-collar life.