Sara Canning‘s guest post Murder in a small town it’s a full-circle moment after auditioning for the lead role.
“The show has definitely been on my radar because I got to read the pilot and the audition. I loved it right away,” Canning, 38, said exclusively. Us Weekly about his appearance on the Tuesday, Nov. 4 episode of the Fox series. “A good friend of mine was in the pilot and the nice thing about being in the industry is getting to know a lot of actors really well. I see a lot of them on shows that are shot locally. So it was really fun to join an episode.”
Based on novels written by LR Wright, Murder in a small town follows a police chief named Karl (Rossif Sutherland) who investigates mysterious murders with the help of a few others, including his girlfriend, Cassandra (Kristin Kreuk). The procedural format allows the show to include celebrity cameos like Canning, who played Mackenzie in Tuesday’s episode.
Before joining as Mackenzie, Canning initially read for Kreuk’s characterCassandra Lee.
“Kristin is such an amazing actor and it’s so beautiful to see the chemistry between her and Rossif (Sutherland). It was really special to come on board,” he shared about his role.
Canning’s character is originally entered like someone organizing a memorial after his sister’s death. The event went awry after a bear attack, but it was eventually revealed that Mackenzie planned to kill someone during the memorial to avenge her sister’s death.
“It’s really interesting to play a character who is in the middle of such a traumatic event and processing so much pain. It’s about living in the reality of the trauma of the bear attack event,” he said. we. “To have all these scenes in a hospital bed, you have to try to differentiate between where she is in processing what’s happened and suddenly feeling like she’s being investigated.”
Canning called the opportunity a “quite challenging” role.
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“The great thing about playing Mackenzie is that we get to know her in a pretty honest state. This horrible thing has happened and it’s affected her in a very real way, despite the plot she was doing. I loved that about that character, that revelation,” she teased. “These mystery shows in particular are very good at giving us a character that contains a crowd. We meet Mackenzie in a very real state of trauma. It’s even more interesting as she discovers what the premeditated nature of it all was and how she’s now left to pick up the pieces while she’s stuck in a hospital.”
Playing Mackenzie allowed Canning to push herself as an actress. “I love murder mystery shows. I’ve just started watching Task, which I’ve only seen the first episode of, but I love shows that exist in that tone,” he said before teasing the following. “Then I have it Virgin Riverwhere I have a pretty significant arc in Season 7 of that show, which was really exciting. And I made a movie with longtime partner Daniel Gillies from The Vampire Diaries also called Shaman.
Murder in a small town airs Tuesdays on Fox at 8 pm ET.