Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jay Ryan Board Netflix’s ‘North of North’ Arctic Comedy

Etan Vlessing
·2 min read
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Mary Lynn Rajskub and Jay Ryan have boarded the Netflix, CBC and APTN comedy North of North, which has started production in Nunavut in northern Canada.

Rajskub played Chloe O’Brian on the long-running 24 drama and also starred in the comedy Night School with Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish and Mayfield Games with Mira Sorvino. Ryan is a veteran of New Zealand soaps and series like Mary Kills People and Beauty and the Beast.

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Other new cast members for North of North include Maika Harper, Braeden Clarke, Kelly William,  Zorga Qaunaq, Doreen Simmonds and Tanya Tagaq. They join the previously-announced lead Anna Lambe, who plays young Inuk mother Siaja, with Keira Cooper, a 7 year-old actress from Iqaluit, Nunavut, playing her daughter Bun.

Siaja wants to build a new future for herself, not easily done in her small Arctic town where everyone knows your business, according to a synopsis for North of North from the producers. The comedy, created by Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, is produced by Red Marrow Media and Northwood Entertainment.

Netflix’s latest financing for a homegrown Canadian series comes as the U.S. streamer faces a new law compelling it to help subsidize the country’s indie production sector beyond what it already invests in its own originals and local Canadian projects produced north of the border.

Netflix and the CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, earlier partnered on other local TV series like the Anne drama based on the Anne of Green Gables novels, and Alias Grace, which adapted the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name.

Anya Adams, Danis Goulet, Zoe Leigh Hopkins, Lisa Jackson, Renuka Jeyapalan and Aleysa Young will direct episodes of North of North. The executive producer credits are shared by Aglok MacDonald, Arnaquq-Baril , Miranda de Pencier, Anya Adams, Susan Coyne and Garry Campbell.

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