Interview: Ian Tracey and Klea Scott Ooze Intelligence on CBC

CBC's Intelligence, premiering Tuesday at 9 p.m., isn't your usual crime show.

"In the cops and robbers genre, there's a very clear protagonist and antagonist, and that's where this is a bit different," said star Ian Tracey. "The lines are often blurred — there's some questionable characters working in law enforcement and some good-hearted people breaking the law."

Tracey plays Jimmy Reardon, a third-generation crime boss maintaining his family's legacy in shipping and drug smuggling. "He's not a dark, hateful, violent criminal person at all, more of a businessman and entrepreneur," he explained, adding with a laugh, "some of the businesses happen to be illegal."

He's also a devoted father and brother, which makes him both vulnerable and fierce. "The moment the family was involved, all bets were off."

Intelligence is the latest series by Da Vinci's Inquest creator Chris Haddock. "I had been wanting to develop a show for Ian, and got the network on board to support that idea a couple of years ago," he recalled. "They had wanted me to develop a show to replace Da Vinci when it eventually retired."

To complement Tracey's engaging gangster, Haddock wrote the character of steely Mary Spalding, the head of Vancouver's Organized Crime Unit who has one eye on a job at the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) and another on her back-stabbing underlings. After a long search, he found Klea Scott to fill the role.

Despite having to move from Los Angeles and temporarily leave her husband, an American theatre director, behind, the Panama-born, Canada-raised Scott was eager to be part of Intelligence.

"The writing was fantastic," she said. "I had not seen a woman's role in the crime genre so well developed, with her personal life as well as her job. Often when they're looking for a native, Asian, or African actor, it's to round out politically correct numbers. Mary's complex and flawed, and that really appealed to me."

Article Author: Diane Kristine Wild

Diane writes about boring things by day, pop culture things by night. She also runs the TV, Eh? website, a compilation of news about Canadian television. Follow her on Twitter @deekayw for more random thoughts.

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