Clark Backo Loves A Challenge

There’s a moment in Xavier Dolan’s Mommy that speaks to Clark Backo. A teenage boy, skateboarding down the street ahead of the people he loves, reaches out his arms. The screen, which had been squeezed into a tight 1:1 square ratio up until this point, expands with his movements. Everybody takes a breath.

“It completely altered my understanding of what filmmaking can be,” Backo says. Now, it’s a movie moment that the 34-year-old thinks best represents her. She tells me as much as we talk over a Zoom call, her dialing in from her home in Los Angeles, and me, getting swallowed by the darkness of the rapidly falling night in London. While Backo lauds the moment for its technique, sharing her enthusiasm for the format when I bring up a similar aspect ratio change in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, the scene has continued to stay with her for the way it pulls back the curtain on the film’s story.

“It feels like maybe everything is going to be okay,” Backo explains. It’s a rare moment of reprieve for the protagonist, fifteen-year-old Steve, whose personality disorder makes life claustrophobic for not just himself, but everyone around him. “Then the frame starts to close again. You just know what that means on an intuitive level.” It’s a metaphor that Backo relates to on a personal level, having grown up with a sibling with a personality disorder. But it’s also suitably representative of her career. Backo has zero interest in confining herself to one specific acting path. She’d rather try them all.

From television dramas and comedies to independent films and major Hollywood productions, the actor has made appearances in The Changeling, Venom: The Last Dance, Supernatural and The Handmaid’s Tale, but is perhaps best known for playing Rosie in the hit Canadian comedy series Letterkenny.

It’s no surprise that the Montreal-born actor is somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades, a trait that runs through her family line. She is the daughter of Njacko Backo, a Cameroonian-born musician and multidisciplinary artist who has spent his life playing and building traditional African instruments. In the same tune as her father, Backo has never felt tempted to treat the genres and formats of her projects as separate trades, when the heart of them all, she says, is the same: “They’re all human beings telling a story. We only have so many stories, but each genre carries its own language in which to tell that story.” Her work, then, as an actor, is to become fluent in all of them. Enter her role in Yaga, where Backo has been tasked with mastering them all at once.

Yaga, the upcoming limited series from playwright and director Kat Sandler, posits itself as equal parts sexy and supernatural. Inspired by the Slavic folktale Baba Yaga, in which a witch-like woman lives in a house with chicken legs in the woods, Yaga puts a new twist on Sandler’s play of the same name. The eight-part series centers on private investigator Charlie Rapp (Noah Reid) and his reluctant partner Detective Carson (Backo), who are tasked with investigating the disappearance of Henry Park (Hudson Williams), the rich, young heir to a local fishery family. It’s both a supernatural whodunnit and witch-filled, comedic thriller, and Backo feels right at home as the show’s stoic yet determined detective.

It’s a role that initially made Backo do a double take, even after reading the pilot episode alone. “It was very clear how much this show would require from me and how much I’d have to stretch as an actor. I knew I’d have to seamlessly dance from one genre to another.” Not one to run from a challenge, Backo said yes anyway. “Sometimes you have to follow your fears,” she says.

“I saw something that seemed like too much, or too hard. And that’s why I had to do it.”

The practical demands matched the creative ones too, with the schedule centering on thirty-two days of block shooting eight episodes, which she compares to making two indie films back-to-back. But this is a feat that Backo is no stranger to, and is, apparently, the Canadian way. When I ask what that was like, she brushes it off with a fond, “Go Canada!”, uttered through a dazzling, toothy grin.

But there were moments “in the chaos of it”, as she calls it, when she and her co-stars looked to each other for genuine help. “There were times when we’d say, ‘help, S.O.S., for real,” she tells me with a laugh. But it’s a chaos that she looks back on fondly, citing her experience on set as one of her favorites thus far, which is partly thanks to her fellow cast members. “We held each other’s hands and did it together,” she explains. The cast she refers to is an incredible who’s who of Canadian talent, whom Backo has nothing but praise for.

Many of Backo’s scenes share the screen with Charlie Rapp, an arrogant, know-it-all detective from out of town. Played by Noah Reid, the bond between the pair was immediate: “From our first FaceTime, we just immediately understood that we were on the same page. We knew shooting was going to be tough, but it was clear that we were going to be here for each other, anyway.” 

Reid would spend their off moments entertaining the set with his character’s alter ego, Tony Rapp, who Backo tells me about with a devilish grin, confessing that “he hates when I bring it up, but he’s not here, so I can do it.” (Her advice, should you ever meet Reid: “Try to get Tony out, please.”) In its entirety, partnering with Reid is an experience she calls one of the greatest joys of her career. “I don’t always get to say that about a project,” she admits. “But I really mean it with this one.”

Then there’s Carrie-Anne Moss, the juggernaut star whom Backo doesn’t hesitate to decree “mother, icon, and legend.” Moss plays the sensual Dr Katherine Hargrove, a mysterious college professor. I cannot believe that we text,” says Backo of Moss, before adding that the most surprising element of working with Moss was her initial reservedness on set. Backo and Reid had already built a rhythm of banter, having started their shoot two weeks ahead of the rest of the cast in an effort to establish their characters’ combative chemistry. “Entering any set is scary, no matter how long you’ve been in this industry,” Backo acknowledges. “So we made a point of pulling Carrie-Anne in. As soon as we got her to realise that she was inside of this thing with us, that she could come kiki with us, all bets were off. She is hilarious.”

Backo has proof, citing one of her favourite days on set as Reid imitating an accent in the hair and makeup trailer one morning, which led Moss to break into fits of laughter.

“I have a four-minute video of her laughing. Sometimes when I’m having a bad day, I rewatch that video.”

This is a fondness that extends to a secondary, albeit rising juggernaut name on the cast list. Yaga sees Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams on screen in his first role since the Canadian hockey romance blew up last year, playing the dual roles of Henry Park and his suspiciously similar roommate, Logan Casey. “We were filming this show when everything had just exploded for him. He was dealing with people stopping him on the street for the first time,” Backo says, with an air of protectiveness. For those who insist on following him in public, she has a simple warning: “Please stop harassing him, people. Let him have some privacy.” I’m inclined to agree.

But none of this newfound fame managed to veer Williams off course, with Backo noting how he turned up to set every day completely prepared. “To have so much going on in his life yet stay so grounded and so dedicated to his craft is something that I really admire. He’s also such a cinephile. He knows all the cinematographers, every actor.” Backo, by comparison, has a never-ending watchlist of films she hasn’t seen.

“He just stayed true to what he’s actually here to do. He loves his job. He’s locked in.”

As an outsider, one might assume that having someone like Williams attached could create an added sense of pressure under so many expectant eyes. Instead, having the Heated Rivalry star in the cast has done the opposite. Speaking to etalk Canada, showrunner Kat Sandler commented on the community that has sprung up around Yaga already, saying that a lot of it has to do with Williams having siphoned people to read the play. “The attention really helps us talk about some bigger issues in the show. [Williams] is so good at redirecting things back to the story […] and back to the power of women.”

This is a noteworthy arrangement. Yaga is, at its core, a story about women, whether they’re witches or mothers or teenage girls. “It’s a story about family and matriarchy at its heart, with a whole load of other stuff that unravels throughout the story,” says Backo. It also explores issues of female agency and the sacred yet hard-won skill of trusting one’s intuition. That trust is something that Backo’s character, Carson, is learning, too. While she’s smart, capable and good at her job, she spends much of the show learning to rely on her own judgment.

Backo is gently deflating when asked how she balanced Carson’s drive with her vulnerability: “Isn’t that what it is to be a woman, or a human?” Rather than hold the two traits in tension with one another, Backo chose to see them as elements of Carson that go hand in hand. “Kat Sandler is a brilliant writer, and she knows how to write female characters that are more than one thing.”

“All of the things that make Carson who she is felt very real to me.”

But there were aspects of Carson’s character that harken back to a person that Backo used to be. “She’s pretty black and white when it comes to her moral compass at the start,” Backo says. “Then Noah’s character, Charlie Rapp, comes into her life and it all kind of…” — she makes a poof! gesture on screen — “as it does when a man enters a woman’s life.”

Charlie is, simply put, infuriating. He’s flirtatious, rude and relentlessly in Carson’s way. Backo immediately agrees with the assessment that he is unabashedly annoying. “But he’s also charming,” Backo admits. This is where some of her kinship with Carson fell away, explaining that, in her real life, she is hopefully on the other side of falling for guys like Charlie Rapp. “I’ve had my fair share. It’s one of those things where the universe keeps placing them in front of you to make sure you learn the lesson.” Playing a character in the middle of that lesson, at a point where Backo felt like she’d already learned it, was interesting. “I kept having to go to Kat and be like, ‘Why does she like this guy again?'” she says. The answer took some digging and patience. “I think the more you watch, you’ll begin to see what Carson does see in him. Maybe?” She laughs.

While Yaga might not be a love letter to chivalry, it is a love letter to Canadian talent and stories. While this is no new feat, with shows like Schitt’s Creek and stars like Ryan Reynolds and Rachel McAdams hailing from Canada, Yaga represents a more scrappy, homegrown endeavor. Backo has a theory about why Canadian projects are finding their footing on the global stage, aside from the obvious success of a certain hockey show. “I posit that it has something to do with our energy,” she says.

“I think audiences are a little tired of seeing the same people over and over again.”

She’s quick to offer a reminder that there’s nothing wrong with Hollywood’s ‘star system’, as she calls it, lamenting her love for Nicole Kidman, while also recognising that it’s always worth it to throw in some unknown faces. “It’s nice to not know what to expect from an actor. I think that’s what Jacob Tierney did so well with Heated Rivalry.”

There’s a secondary sparkle to these Canadian shows, however, that Backo attributes to the teams that are behind the scenes making them. “Many productions are just scraping by in Canada, but they always carry a tenacity that I think really appeals to outsiders.” When asked about how it feels to see the spotlight finally shine on Canada and its exports in such a notable way, she offers me a knowing grin.

“I think we’ve been undervalued for a very long time, and that makes us hungry. It keeps us humble, too, which people probably appreciate.”

That humility shines through in Backo, and when asked what she wants to do next, she needs a little encouragement to toot her own horn. “I really love to have as much responsibility in a project as possible, and I want to start taking on the role of executive producer,” she admits. “I think I’m good at setting a vibe on set, and I’m proud of how crews feel when I’m higher up on a call sheet. I really want to be confident enough to recognise that in myself instead of feeling shy about it. Yaga has taught me that.”

Backo has big plans for her future work on-screen, too, with the genre-mending range of Yaga preparing her for the list of directors she hopes to one day work with. I laugh at the synchronicity. “For a long time, my answer was Paul Thomas Anderson,” she starts. “But ever since Moonlight, I’ve always wanted to get my hands on Barry Jenkins.” It’s a wishlist just as vast and wide-reaching as I expected. For now, though, Backo’s singular goal is to work with Chloe Zhao. “The way she treats a set is something I am starving for. To exchange energy with a woman like that…” she lets out a yearning sigh. “That’s just got to be such a special, life-affirming time.”

She’s got a pitch in mind for Zhao, too. “I want to do a real action film next, like My Colombiana, Atomic Blonde or Kill Bill. But as a real female lead,” she clarifies. “I don’t want to be in support of. I want to be that girl.” When I jest that she might be looking in the wrong direction with Zhao, Backo immediately rebuts: “I could see her doing a slow, brooding version of something like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” A plan is then set in motion. I insist she pitch the idea if she’s ever in a room with the director. With a fighting spirit, Backo promises that she will.

Before we hang up, I ask Backo what she thinks is going to surprise people the most about Yaga, aside from the many wrangled chickens and strangely erotic bone lessons from Carrie-Anne Moss. She lends an anecdote from the show’s two-episode premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last month as an answer. “I sat in a row with my mom and brother, Reid and his wife, Moss and Williams. Just the perfect lineup,” she says. In the dark, she heard her brother, who she says is a tough critic, belly laughing throughout. “When it was over, he was like, ‘Why didn’t you tell me it’s funny?'”

Backo isn’t sure that audiences will expect the way the story, which initially seems to be about one person and one thing, continues to transform as the episodes progress. “There’s so much going on, and you don’t really know who the show is about. And then everything completely shifts by the end.”

It’s a thought that brings us back to Backo’s praise of Xavier Dolan’s visual expansion of the life of a teenage boy on a suburban street. It feels fitting that Backo should find herself in a shapeshifting show like Yaga, a project that moulds itself into one thing, before transforming into another before the credits have even rolled. That one frame of Mommy couldn’t hold the true wants of that character within its frame. As she lists genres and directors and visions of seeing her name high up on a call sheet, it seems that nothing will succeed in doing the same to Clark Backo, either.

• Styling Kaitlyn Vitug @kaitlynvitug
• Stylist assistant Miriam Brown @miriandum
• Hair Evalyn Denis @eviedoesla
• Nails Ginger Lopez @nailsdid.byginger
• Makeup Kimora Mulan @kimoramulan
• Videographer Simon Gulergun @simongulergun
• Location @sherwood.studios
• Film lab @arthousefilmlab