With the Canadian-filmed Netflix hit Virgin River returning for Season 6 (premiering Dec. 19), there’s a lot of suspense around where the show will go, starring Alexandra Breckenridge, Martin Henderson, Tim Matheson, Annette O’Toole, Colin Lawrence, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Zibby Allen and Kandyse McClure. Fans are waiting for Mel (Breckenridge) and Jack (Henderson) to get married, with looming questions about Mel’s biological father, Everett Reid (John Allen Nelson).
But fans are also waiting to find out what happens after the body of Preacher’s (Lawrence) ex-girlfriend’s abusive husband was found, after Preacher helped her hide the body. What makes it more complicated is that the body was found by local firefighters and Preacher’s girlfriend, Kaia (McClure), is the chief of the fire department.
“He’s always going to be OK because he’s Preacher, it’s who he is in the show,” McClure told Yahoo Canada ahead of the Season 6 premiere. “He always finds his way. He always finds the light. He’s in some trouble though this time.”
‘She’s kind of struggling with the vulnerability that she feels’
When McClure’s character, Kaia, joined the Virgin River cast last season we were introduced to a woman who was really taking her career into her own hands, an independent thinker who saves lives. McClure stressed that she wanted to ensure that Kaia didn’t completely lose herself in this new relationship with Preacher in Season 6.
“That was incredibly important to me … because of how she came in, full of so much self-determination and volition,” McClure said. “And when we come to understand what she had been involved in, in her previous relationship, it was like, wait, … hold on. Don’t just settle in with the first full set of teeth that walk by.”
“Even into this season, she’s kind of struggling with the vulnerability that she feels. Like, am I getting too involved? … Because she is so used to being the hero and being able to come in, fix whatever’s wrong and then leave, and two of those options are not available to her at that moment. She really just has to trust and believe. But I’m very, very excited to see that the minute she kind of feels settled she kind of goes, … I need to carve out my own space. I need to be my own person. … I’m a whole person and he’s a whole person. We do completely different things, but we get to come together in these beautiful times, in various ways.”
In terms of what excited the actor about this new season of Virgin River, it was that Kaia is now really part of the town.
“I love that I have other friendships and opportunities for relationships with other people, I also love this kind of room of my own that I get,” McClure said. “She’s finding herself again. … She thought she knew herself in a lot of ways and then got kind of turned around by unexpectedly falling in love with such a different man than before, thank goodness. And I think it’s that thing of like, in the full rush of love you maybe lose yourself, and that was kind of a fear of hers.”
“So I love that I get to figure that out, while at the same time really understanding what it means to stand by someone, to really involve yourself in their struggles and in their lives. … And even though that might really be frustrating for you, that they’re not making the choices that you would make, just having that respect and that trust.”
(L to R) Kandyse McClure as Kaia, Colin Lawrence as Preacher in episode 602 of Virgin River (Netflix)
Kandyse McClure has felt ‘enormous pressure’ to move from Canada to the U.S.
While Virgin River is set in Northern California, the show is filmed in British Columbia, with the series among many Netflix hits filmed in “Hollywood North.” For McClure, who’s a Canadian actor based in Vancouver, she’s seen and felt the shift in not just TV and movies filming in Canada, but Canadian talent really being recognized.
“So much has happened in the last few years that have really altered the landscape of the business, and I’m sure there are more changes to come, but I think in the meantime, Vancouver, in particular, and certainly Toronto have been growing,” McClure said. “We all of a sudden started being recognized, not just as substitutes for a version of another place, but for ourselves. Having really high quality shows shot here in Canada and being represented as Canadian, telling stories of different demographic groups in Canada.”
“There were times in my career where I felt like it really cost me that I don’t live in America and that I choose to go to South Africa, move to the Caribbean, or go to Europe or do other things. But I’ve always made choices that were positive for my own personal life and my own sense of self. But to come back and be like, oh this is a legitimate place to be cast from. This is legitimate talent pool. We’re finally being seen for who we are, and I’m really proud of that.”
McClure did stress that she’s felt “enormous pressure” in her career to move to the U.S. to really bolster her career, but has ultimately decided that’s not the place she wants to set more permanent roots.
“I’ve not always been settled about that decision, if I’m really honest,” McClure said. “There have been times where I was like, this is really affecting me, this is affecting my viability, my relevance, my ability to be cast, my ability to be taken seriously.”
“It does still exist. But I also feel like, really, it’s changed so exponentially, just in the recent past.”
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 15: Kandyse McClure attends the photo call for Facebook Watch’s “Limetown” at The Hollywood Athletic Club on October 15, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic)
‘Passed the torch’ to continue to share Viola Desmond’s story
From Virgin River and beyond, McClure has proven to be an absolute force in the entertainment industry, with impactful and memorable performances in other projects like Battlestar Galactica and Motherland: Fort Salem. But playing Viola Desmond in the Heritage Minutes series in 2016 really impacted the actor, inspiring her to work to hopefully create a longer project about the Canadian civil right activist.
In 1946 Desmond, a business owner, refused to move to the balcony of the segregated Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow, N.S., and she was dragged out of the venue and arrested, and Desmond fought her charges all the way to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. In 2018 she became the first Canadian woman on a regularly circulating Canadian $10 bill.
“As an immigrant, as a naturalized Canadian, … I empathized so much with what she was going through,” McClure said. “A Black Canadian, Nova Scotian descendant … and an immigrant could share so much in common about their experience of being Canadian, I thought that was really interesting.”
McClure also highlighted that she feels like she been “passed the torch” to share Desmond’s story.
“Somehow I feel like I’ve been passed that torch,” McClure said. “I question it all the time. I don’t know why me, but I will continue to do it.”
“What I find most remarkable about Viola’s story is that this thing happened to her, and it caused these ripple effects, not only in her immediate life, but in the life of her family. And now, as Canadians, we walk around with her in our wallets every day. … She was an extraordinary person who had this very unfortunately and frustratingly ordinary thing happen to her. … But she was remarkable without that ever happening to her. And that’s what I want to know. That was my first question, and it continues to be my question. But who was she? Who was she as a sister, as a daughter, as a boss, as a best friend, because she was all these things.”