True Patriot Love - How Joel Stewart Reinvented Canadian Entertainment

00:00:00.000 today i'm going to share with you my friend joel stewart he's not just an iconic director he's not

00:00:07.280 just had a impact on the canadian music industry in the country realm and beyond

00:00:12.880 he's not just released a brand new film that has garnered critical acclaim across the country and

00:00:18.960 beyond but he's also kind of just my uh gauge of what's happening in entertainment here in canada

00:00:27.680 spend some time with us today won't you

00:00:33.920 all the things you said i'm not you're right

00:00:37.840 that's not fair joel come on you know what i meant and in fact the one thing that i left off the list

00:00:42.080 was you were recently honored in your hometown of uh saskatoon well actually china actually i was

00:00:49.520 winnipeg i was honored in moose jaw saskatchewan i meant moose jaw uh which i'm not from i just uh

00:00:55.840 spend a lot of time there and and helped out with some of the charitable causes uh that they

00:01:00.560 were involved in i mean i thought that's just where you were from no i'd never been to moose

00:01:06.400 jaw till like 28 2008. and now all these years later you receive the uh coronation medal uh the

00:01:15.200 king's coronation medal i believe yes the same one that don cherry got recently but i got mine in march

00:01:20.800 well my point was in introducing you you're one of the most talented guys i've met in the business

00:01:26.160 in canada uh i love your music i love the way you direct i know the people that you've worked with

00:01:31.680 for all of these years and consistently everybody says the same thing that joel really needs to sober

00:01:38.160 up that's right they're not wrong uh everybody says the same thing they love working with you

00:01:43.840 uh the smile says it all and uh i'm thrilled to have had the uh the brush up against you in my career

00:01:49.200 and i appreciate you joining us thank you those that's all very very kind i i i hope people have

00:01:55.520 enjoyed when we have worked together i mean i hope they feel everything we've worked on has been good

00:02:03.040 or if it's been bad there's a good reason for it um but honestly how i want to be known

00:02:10.720 is is uh a person who hopefully took the time listened to people um you know so that's lovely

00:02:20.400 to hear that feedback well that is the feedback that you get and and then the uh careful consideration

00:02:25.360 so let's let's do this let's set you up a little bit okay and then let's go into what's happening in

00:02:30.880 and film and uh television here in canada and beyond uh most recently and i'll go back uh

00:02:37.680 uh to the most recent thing that we have uh connected on which was your brand new movie

00:02:44.480 souls road i mean an incredible movie man i was so blown away uh at the premiere uh it got a standing

00:02:52.560 ovation which was natural uh congratulations on this thank you very much uh thank you for your kind

00:03:00.640 words on that uh souls road uh was a great gift in my life uh i am not as young as i once was may

00:03:09.120 i bore you with a little story please this is why i asked you to come uh during the pandemic when all

00:03:15.040 of our work went away uh and my dad was in later years and and and and uh uh reduced to his bed i

00:03:22.400 flew it to victoria and kind of slept beside him for a few months and uh he still has fastball mentally

00:03:28.400 and all that stuff but his body was failing him and we we would swap lies all the time and tell

00:03:33.120 stories and dad used to work for the cbc for many years and he said you know son did i ever tell you

00:03:38.720 about the time bob hope lied to me you know so we'd have this that's a good story it was a great story

00:03:44.480 and there were a bunch like that and i said to him you know dad if i had any regrets uh it's that i

00:03:49.600 never made a movie and i've never been to the world series you know i think i'll work on the world

00:03:54.880 series part but the movie part has kind of passed me by and then gosh six months later i got an email

00:04:01.360 from a guy i knew pretty well in the 90s but he said hey remember that movie i i showed you in 1998

00:04:07.280 called souls road and i said yeah the one you wrote for gallon to be in oh wow yes he wrote his souls

00:04:14.240 wrote as a lawrence gallon so now i can see i can see lawrence gallon in that era in this film yes yeah

00:04:20.720 uh and i said yeah i sure do remember he goes well i'm thinking of doing it i'm thinking of doing it

00:04:25.600 now and uh he had uh the financing in place and i kind of said why me and he said well you know i've

00:04:35.360 known a lot of directors since we last hung out and uh a lot of them aren't very nice people and i

00:04:41.200 thought if i'm going to do this i'd like to be a positive experience and i thought oh well that's just

00:04:46.000 very lovely uh so i was uh granted that opportunity and was uh i feel able to execute it pretty well

00:04:53.520 and uh i'm very proud of it well you should be i mean every every moment of the movie and this is a

00:04:59.520 rarity i in in jest as friends i said to you what is this movie you made and you said oh it's it's a

00:05:06.000 nice romantic and i went okay i'm out you said you're coming to the premiere you know i was like ah

00:05:11.520 it's real well my wife definitely wants to go and in fact she loved the movie as well and i don't

00:05:18.480 think it left anybody in that theater untouched there was something for the guys because it's a

00:05:24.160 band it's a band there's rock and roll there's something for for the romantic in the crowd because

00:05:29.840 there's this beautiful uh story that spans people's lives the script was incredible the acting was

00:05:35.680 remarkable and the cast uh stayed after the movie and you guys all had a discussion answered some

00:05:42.320 questions and talked about the film and what i took from that was you guys had a miracle moment in

00:05:47.600 canadian film actually thank you mike i and i think you know none of this happens in a vacuum right

00:05:54.160 i think it was a little bit of a blessing remember that at the time we wanted to make the movie

00:05:59.040 there was a a strike in the states with actors actors yeah um we we couldn't even if we wanted to

00:06:06.800 approach an american actor without dispensation from the actors guild down there the lineup to do so

00:06:12.240 there was a a person that the producers were eyeing for the lead role but the lineup to get this letter

00:06:18.480 of dispensation where and you can't approach this person even though there's a strike going on

00:06:22.640 was a thousand people deep right you know so we had this all canadian cast

00:06:29.200 and uh and it was interesting because we all just loved each other uh from the minute we all got

00:06:36.880 together and i i felt i gave the actors space to do their work i i feel like the crew had their time

00:06:44.480 to do their bit as well but it was just you know you get the right people in the right room with the

00:06:50.400 right idea and the right story to tell and if you're me part of it is getting out of the way

00:07:00.160 i feel if i'd been granted this opportunity as a younger director i may have screwed it up i may

00:07:05.920 have tried to show off too much oh look at me now i'm directing no let's just serve this story and do

00:07:11.600 what the story needs and nobody goes out humming the two shot or the steady cam shot they're going to go

00:07:17.600 out there humming the song or or or one of the one of the lines from the the actors but i just feel

00:07:23.760 i feel like there's a lesson there where if you give these canadians an opportunity a lot of them

00:07:30.320 had not had meteor meaty roles like this before yeah there was a couple of cast members i met that were

00:07:36.000 musicians yes but really kind of pulled into the acting world recently just before the movie uh and then

00:07:42.800 of course before that was coveted so this was a couple of the actors in this really stretching

00:07:48.400 their wings for the first time yes young owen who plays dave i cast him because he was first and

00:07:54.080 foremost a musician and i needed a uh musical tutor it because a couple of the actors were faking their

00:08:01.040 instruments oj verdict shocker wow why do you guys do this in movies yes uh but you know owen was in a

00:08:08.960 sense uh my music coach uh while we were between takes i'm gonna go talk to gina she's kind of

00:08:14.160 missing that downbeat on oh yeah yeah so so uh he had he had that uh charlie who plays uh the brother

00:08:22.160 uh charlie gillespie my gosh this actor honestly remarkable i'm gonna tell you i said this to the

00:08:29.840 the gang on on set when we shot charlie's first scene and he came in and then then charlie leaves the

00:08:36.800 room and we were all very quiet and i said i've seen this once before and it was when i cast an

00:08:43.760 actor named callum keith rennie in a play called american buffalo at the edmonton fringe festival

00:08:47.760 in 1985. calum's gone on to have a great career in all kinds of television and film um but he'd never

00:08:55.440 acted before but i it's that same thing that you kind of can't teach this actor who just comes in and

00:09:02.560 makes these interesting choices and i had one of the producers going what's he doing there you got to

00:09:06.400 stop him i'm like no let's see what he does with let's see what he does and then charlie would

00:09:10.400 always complete his thought this is very inside baseball i realize this is no no i love it you

00:09:15.120 know but uh steve roll once said talking about songwriting is like dancing about architecture

00:09:20.080 i'm going to talk about acting process a little bit this is i think it's fascinating to everybody

00:09:23.920 you know you know but he was he would do he went in there he was just doing some odd things twitching

00:09:28.320 and i'm like what's going on here and but he always he always completed the thought of whatever he

00:09:33.200 was doing physically and he genuinely represented an oddly behaving real human being yes a flawed human

00:09:43.920 being like he changes his mind mid conversation about things you know like we all do there's a

00:09:49.360 scene where he shows up at his sister's place to say hey your old boyfriend's back in town

00:09:53.760 and uh and what a scene between charlie gillespie and camille stops he just they both just hit every

00:10:03.040 every rhythmic nuance of that scene and it was just a pleasure to watch it unfold and and and maybe to

00:10:11.680 be the person who kept everybody away like let's just let them do this well you know what's very

00:10:16.800 interesting uh joel is i definitely that night felt like i have taken for granted uh my friendship

00:10:25.600 with you and creative uh relationship with you because what i witnessed and it's the reason i say

00:10:30.960 this is because we don't know what people can do we don't know until they amaze us and i think you saw

00:10:41.040 that in every step of the process there was things you could count on but there was amazing surprises

00:10:46.560 like a cast that loved each other uh like the ability to have had a film come to you at a point

00:10:52.160 in your life where you could really manage it with wisdom wisdom and it made me think wow here's a guy

00:11:01.600 that i detected much like you did uh with the with charlie yeah almost immediately wow this guy has a spark

00:11:10.640 that brings projects to life uh previously i mean uh people may not know country music in canada

00:11:20.480 rode on your back and some very talented people at cmt for many years in a market that might have

00:11:27.280 otherwise been ignored so even before you got to film you were building something that slow burn you had

00:11:35.200 the patience for this slow burn what was that element of life like because i don't think that there's a

00:11:41.920 country musician uh during that era that you probably that came through canada that you wouldn't have had

00:11:47.600 a touch point with and and the americans uh at that time too in all honesty um and and i i i'm gonna

00:11:56.080 approach your answer with hopefully a little bit of humility i i used to do shows that were that aired on

00:12:03.360 cmt i lived in calgary alberta at the time and i was doing some premiums i was lucky enough to do

00:12:08.400 some premium shows where i i pitched an idea and oh my gosh the first time i pitched a show to cmt

00:12:15.360 they said well we like everything about this except for you that's a nice thing to hear yes and i said

00:12:21.280 why well well the video you have on cmt now it's not very good and i said well i spent three thousand

00:12:26.000 dollars of my own money what do you it's not as good as the brooks and dunn one that you know so i i said

00:12:32.000 well here's some shows i'm doing for american tv let me can i meet with you and and then i did a

00:12:37.920 show called steel belted radio with my friend mike plume and uh and then i got a thing from the network

00:12:44.800 we want to see two songs right away see if this is any good so i cut two songs and then i gotta call

00:12:49.360 you gotta come in his ted kennedy's secretary called and said mr kennedy wants to meet you i'm like oh i'm

00:12:55.360 in trouble oh they hate me this is it it's over and he said uh this is uh already the best thing we've

00:13:00.640 ever done how busy do you want to be wow so i i got more shows more projects and then they were

00:13:08.240 trying to get me to move out and and help the network itself uh look a bit more like some of

00:13:14.560 the shows that were on the network which were being made by me and it did begin to reflect that like

00:13:19.840 the taste and the flavor of that network very much became the essence of those original shows and they

00:13:24.960 hired paul mcguire uh who uh i had worked with a little bit when he was at ypv and and i was like

00:13:31.440 you have the best broadcaster in canada there for my money one of the best broadcasters canada will

00:13:37.680 ever have yes wire yes he's engaged he's bright he just really loved the era of that country music

00:13:46.000 he's still doing he's still doing it and and and you know i think we did it together me paul in the

00:13:54.080 leadership roles and and some other folks but when i got to cmt uh you know jan arden was coming through

00:14:00.240 toronto so hey can we get an interview with jan arden no your network's terrible it looks bad and

00:14:06.400 sounds bad jan doesn't want to do it okay well let me make this better and then a year later i was doing

00:14:14.480 a live show with jan arden uh shot at the revival bar in toronto i had changed the outlook of the

00:14:20.000 network and and it became a destination for people with a story to tell and a song to sing so i was

00:14:27.680 lucky enough to work with tons of them that's so interesting joe because at that time there wasn't

00:14:33.680 really a launch pad certainly in the major cities like on the east coast well mid canada toronto ottawa montreal

00:14:44.160 didn't really have a strong country music market but there was all this new crossover country at

00:14:49.360 that era that was really starting to break and it seemed like cmt gave so many of these artists that

00:14:56.800 crossed over and really had a good country base uh of local fans it gave them a place to really flourish

00:15:05.840 on the international market yeah and and and you know you got a show on with us if if we did a special

00:15:12.480 on you and and and if if if 80 000 people watched it or whatever or even 40 000 which is a low number

00:15:20.240 but that's a lot of concert halls that's a lot of van rides you're you're reaching these people and you

00:15:26.160 know and there's something about taking that to the international tour bookers to say look i've really

00:15:31.040 done it here in canada there's going to be an expat market out there for me start booking me put it put me on

00:15:37.040 as the opener but you know all of these opportunities then open up we were such a big part of the

00:15:41.760 ecosystem of their careers mcguire used to say it best we're the media extension of their jobs you

00:15:47.600 know oh that's so true yeah yeah yes we are well let's do the best work we can for them and uh and

00:15:54.480 you know and we made friends along the way it was it was all very interesting it all happened fast man

00:15:59.680 we were there for you know 11 12 years before they decided not to run country music on country music

00:16:04.880 television i'm looking at that camera um but uh yeah you know and it and it honestly by the way

00:16:12.480 that that's some careers i was gonna say that hole is still there i think that we hear that regularly

00:16:18.160 from musicians not just country musicians not even just in canada that that void is now there in canada

00:16:26.720 is noted uh country music lost its spotlight yes and even even you know when when word got out that

00:16:34.160 we were we were being phased out all the americans reached out to us i mean like superstar luke brian

00:16:40.720 you know the florida georgia lion guys were the biggest band at the time we did all kinds of stuff

00:16:44.480 with them they were all like you guys were great you the stuff we did with you guys was better than

00:16:49.120 anything we did in certain name of american network no i can see that that there was a certain amount of

00:16:53.920 love and care that went into it here uh at all levels i mean i think you probably knew every crew

00:16:58.880 member that worked in that network oh yeah probably knew every uh sentence that was written uh you and

00:17:05.600 paul had this definite chemistry that was the the image we still do we still do yeah i still talk to

00:17:11.840 paul that guy i put his voice in souls road at the beginning right oh i didn't even notice that when

00:17:17.520 the singer has the meltdown i was kind of like well if this is my if this is my movie if this is my one

00:17:22.640 movie i want a bunch i want to represent my buddy paul got me here too right remind me after this

00:17:28.880 interview i have an email that i want to send off to joel about uh not being considered close movie i

00:17:34.480 just want to thank you uh but you're right that relationship i think did a lot for paul did a lot

00:17:41.840 for you along the way okay so let's let's go back to where all this began for you your dad worked for

00:17:48.480 cbs yes so you had this exposure to broadcast in canada i did it was exciting in fact my mother

00:17:56.560 my mother at the time of my birth my mother had a tv show in ottawa it was a local tv you know arts

00:18:02.080 and crafts ideas for the kids for halloween you know and it was mom and uh i think lloyd robertson

00:18:07.920 was a co-host for a while and alex grebeck was oh my god it was like the same so your mom was on tv

00:18:14.000 when you were a kid yeah she was pregnant with me and then brought me out and then and then

00:18:18.320 but you know wait a second let me see if i got this right she was pregnant with you and then

00:18:22.240 she brought you out you're saying she had you live on the show no no she brought me out like two weeks

00:18:26.320 later and said this is why i was okay you know uh so it was uh very you know so and dad was an actor

00:18:35.040 dad was in uh did a lot of amateur theater in ottawa at the ottawa little theater he was part of

00:18:40.480 that core group that started that up my dad was in a movie with robert shaw called the luck of ginger

00:18:45.520 coffee uh directed by irving kershner who went on to make a little art film called the empire strikes

00:18:50.720 back oh that is uh notable you know uh and never say never again that james bond movie no one ever

00:18:56.240 talks about uh but you know so uh music and theater were always just part of our the soundtrack of our

00:19:04.400 home you know dad would wake up we'd wake up on saturday morning and dad would be blaring the man of

00:19:09.360 la mancha you know good choice still makes me sad at the end the man of la mancha i can't take it i

00:19:16.080 want to cry just thinking about it now you know what joel if you need to take a minute yeah we're okay

00:19:20.960 yeah we've got all the time in the world yeah uh so yeah so there you are in this essentially uh

00:19:29.040 fertile bed of creativity around you all the time and people probably welcoming that yes yes yes it was

00:19:37.120 it was kind of encouraged um but i was also raised in the mormon faith right there weren't too many

00:19:44.960 uh actors who were mormon robert redford was married to a mormon but he himself was not mormon

00:19:50.480 um so if if you know there are often discussions about well we shouldn't see that movie because it has

00:19:56.480 an r rating an officer and a gentleman remember that movie there was a big sex scene there

00:20:01.520 and uh with deborah winger and richard gear and you can't go see that movie it was against my religion

00:20:06.800 to go see that movie and my father said to me you should go see that movie blue gossip is really

00:20:14.000 good in that movie you should see that performance interesting so even beyond the bounds of religion

00:20:20.880 your dad was like look you need to see talent yeah yeah need to recognize that that was a special

00:20:26.960 performance you you would enjoy that and so you know i i wanted to be an actor i was a working actor

00:20:34.000 until i was 25 and then i had a brother who was in radio and got into television and you know nepotism

00:20:43.200 he said hey you need a job i was washing dishes at a moxie's in edmonton at the time and and i trained

00:20:50.000 up to become a videotape editor and my brother said to me one day you're going to do what i do but you're

00:20:57.200 going to be better at it but you have to be better than everyone in toronto because you're in alberta

00:21:04.560 that's your competition it's not the guy down the street that's right and and he was very very spot

00:21:10.560 on oh yes yeah and then when i got into making music videos because i was like oh my gosh i want

00:21:15.280 to make music videos like guns and roses november rain they had a million bucks that's what i want to do

00:21:20.720 so i started i found these independent bands i'm like hey i'll pay for half of it you know

00:21:27.280 uh and we would do these extremely low budget videos which were the time of my life they weren't awesome

00:21:34.320 um but i finally got paid on video number 30. that's pretty good odds in the biz well done joel yeah

00:21:42.400 finally got no i got it wasn't that i got paid it was that somebody else paid for it on video 30.

00:21:48.480 um but i found myself yeah what happened there oh right so i did that tv show with mike plume

00:21:59.760 and then cmt said oh we want you to do this other thing with a guy named paul brandt uh uh quite an

00:22:05.120 achieved uh country star from calgary alberta who just his career had kind of changed he was leaving

00:22:12.160 nashville coming back to canada bit between his tail through his his leg and i did a long form show with

00:22:17.360 paul called small towns and big dreams and then paul said to me do you ever make music videos and by

00:22:21.680 this point i was like nah no i don't do that anymore that's right i took the sting on 30 of those yes

00:22:27.840 and then he said well if i ever get a budget again would you be interested and i said oh sure you know

00:22:32.800 you have those conversations all the time and nothing happens and then one day he called and said okay i

00:22:36.800 got a bunch of money and and here's the song and uh i did that uh to differing levels of success

00:22:45.840 either some people hate it some people don't that's fine uh but then terry clark said oh who

00:22:50.400 did the paul brandt video so then i did a video for terry clark which and then all of a sudden i'm a

00:22:54.400 country guy so funny how that happened and i did i had no it no designs on being a country person were

00:23:00.800 you a country music fan i was going to ask you this i always assumed that you were more of a rock

00:23:05.360 sort of a straightaway well you know jam band rock guy i saw bruce springs in the east street band

00:23:10.560 maple leaf gardens in 1978 in the darkness in the into town tour and it changed the path of my life i'm not

00:23:15.440 kidding me so musically that's where i resided but um willie nelson's stardust album which was all kind

00:23:26.000 of jazz classics done by willie produced by booker t jones but that was a record we listened to in in

00:23:32.240 our house all the time so i guess if that's country music that's country music but you know that was

00:23:37.120 actually a crossover i i think so too like so did i know country music no i didn't know mark chestnut or

00:23:44.080 any of those you know those old hat acts tracy but i just didn't know it was all very new but i was

00:23:50.080 like don't tell them how little you know about them right i mean well you know and by the way most i

00:23:56.560 think celebrities that you meet out there don't need you to assume knowledge about them that's the one

00:24:03.040 thing that i've noticed about genuine talent you know i sit here having known you for decades yeah

00:24:08.640 yeah saying to you wait i thought you were from saskatchewan what you can learn about people who

00:24:15.360 are humble takes a long time yeah i guess so hey yeah they don't uh they don't announce themselves they

00:24:23.840 they're in the woodwork uh don't shouldn't you be cautious of someone who walks in and and says hey uh

00:24:31.360 you probably know me from this yeah you know like oh right i got a friend who uh in a band called skydiggers

00:24:37.600 right they big fan they've had a lovely career andy mays andy mays very good friend super talented

00:24:43.360 guy now i love the way he dances by the way oh he's kind of a kind of a chicken yes he's got the

00:24:48.320 he's got the thumbs in the belt loops and you know andy is just and i just love him very much

00:24:54.080 and i'd heard this story that i don't remember i i never got the memo on the tragically hip at the

00:24:59.440 time uh i didn't really know much about the band but i had heard that when they did nautical

00:25:04.400 disaster on saturday live that when the band you know and they headed for home there was a little

00:25:09.520 vamp out and then and then gord went to the mic and saying oh cruel lover no one compares to you

00:25:14.240 which is sky diggers lyrics it was his homage to josh and andrew who he learned his stuff from

00:25:20.880 so i heard this story and i said guys is this true yeah i heard about it like you heard about it like

00:25:28.240 you you didn't record it watch it 50 times over you didn't make a shirt i mean that i would lead

00:25:34.800 with that if that were me right so you talk about humble people not volunteering their their resume

00:25:41.680 uh maybe maybe it's the people i hang out with who are also humble well it's it's interesting

00:25:46.400 because the people that you expect to be a little brash uh john lyden was one of my my wild

00:25:52.960 experiences and i fully expected him to be rude and callous and he was every moment that we were

00:25:58.560 rolling tape but on the other side of each of those the the record and stop button being pushed

00:26:06.080 he was an incredible performer on either side of that he was just charming can i tell you a boring

00:26:11.120 story along those lines we're here for boring stories am i wrong nick yes yes it doesn't involve

00:26:16.240 me but my my very dear friend lisa was working on a show called uh rebels it was a documentary series

00:26:22.160 about people who changed society they got to interview everybody johnny thunders ralph nader

00:26:26.160 you name it they went to uh ray manzarek's house in l.a to interview him and manzarek opens the door

00:26:34.400 he's got the coffee oh is today the day oh you might want to set up here people seem to like that so

00:26:38.800 they set up and you know they start rolling and he's like well jim was dionysus blah blah blah he was

00:26:43.920 a greek god and then they do a tape change you know back in the day we were shooting tape yeah so they

00:26:48.560 do the tape change he fires up a cigarette he goes oh all that stuff i'm saying jim was just a

00:26:53.440 grumpy alcoholic really but i gotta keep the myth alive you know right so but it's off camera and

00:26:59.200 on camera very different yeah um but i just love that story because yeah you know it's yeah you know

00:27:05.840 that's a cranky drunk john lyden's not gonna he's gotta preserve his brand he does you know when

00:27:11.600 he's out there doing that with you i recall he kind of gave me the choice uh you want to do

00:27:16.880 more rotten or more light in which way you want to go oh that's awesome how about public image limited

00:27:22.480 that's my comfort zone oh that also uh you know it's it's amazing that you real talent puts huge

00:27:29.520 effort takes huge effort gives credit to where credit is due around them um you know and it's

00:27:36.320 interesting and speaking to the cast at souls road i'm sorry i irritated the entire cast of the movie at

00:27:42.400 one point or another and i doubt that but my the what i got from them was that they got to do their

00:27:51.520 best work because they felt that they were part of the dream not just that day on set not just that

00:28:00.160 read at the table but that group relied on them to be part of the soul

00:28:06.000 the road of your filmmaking yeah uh please forgive me for doing that just now that's all right but

00:28:13.360 having said that it's interesting how all of those real talents all credited each other never once saying

00:28:21.440 it was my i hit it out of the park moment no all of them hit it out of the park in that movie

00:28:27.040 not one of them acted like they needed to do a victory that's a lovely observation i'm gonna pass

00:28:35.280 that on to them i think that it's interesting that most real talent is like that i mean you do find

00:28:40.720 and maybe you could share a couple of them with us along the way you you find talent that's uh curmudgeonly

00:28:46.800 on occasion or you know they have a bad moment or they feel unfamiliar with the surroundings yeah but

00:28:53.040 real genuine talent seems to come with a certain modicum of kindness and humility well you know

00:28:59.440 man i i i i think it's funny you know uh the one the superstars who i've been lucky enough to work

00:29:09.040 on repeated occasions the reba mcintyres of the world okay tim mcgraw okay they'll walk in they'll

00:29:15.440 shake hands with every member of the crew they know they know who they know what my job is they know

00:29:20.480 i'm the ass they should kiss but they they go to everybody for when i say a kiss by i'm just i'm

00:29:26.880 just joking um but they they know that that that that this is this is how i want to be known i i want to

00:29:35.840 comport myself this way hi i'm reba hi i'm reba we all know you're reba we're here because you're on

00:29:40.800 the call sheet you know like shoot with reba but what she's saying is hi i'm like you hi let's work

00:29:46.320 together yes now some of the artists on the way up are like that too the ones in the messy middle

00:29:53.680 who don't know if they have a career yet they they and the people around them are a bit of a red flag

00:30:01.040 so i've learned that over the years they live in an anxious zone yeah is it all going to end tomorrow

00:30:05.360 is it all going to end tomorrow you know i used to produce the canadian country music awards broadcast

00:30:10.080 and we would always try and create these moments these events let's have a collaboration let's have

00:30:15.120 so-and-so perform with so-and-so that's a great idea they can do this song let's run it by them

00:30:20.560 nope a lot of the time it was no right why because there's 11 slots and i want one of my own

00:30:28.640 i don't want to share it with anybody like this is very limited real estate here in canada makes sense

00:30:33.200 and you watch an american show and they're all collaborating all the time for you know because

00:30:36.720 there's nine american awards shows and country music and and each state has its own recognition and

00:30:42.560 and they really do a good job marketing in each of the states that are hot for that music style

00:30:47.360 marketing that is the thing about everything you know you're going to ask me what's wrong with the

00:30:53.920 canadian film and television industry eventually it is marketing you know we'll get to that later i i you

00:31:03.760 know people are you know the young ones you meet very famous story at cmt my boss ted came into my

00:31:12.720 office and he's got his phone he says joel how are the how the two boys doing i'm like that's a boy and

00:31:17.440 a girl ted right uh what's this thing we're doing tomorrow i said uh the thing you told me to do yeah

00:31:22.960 why are we doing that i said because you told me to do it uh-huh and i said ted her album is pretty

00:31:28.800 good you never know she might be the next shania twain all right well this is on you then they left

00:31:35.280 the next day i went and did my shoot with taylor swift and her little band you know that worked out

00:31:40.080 okay you know oh my god and and actually how well known was she at the time so nobody knew her the

00:31:47.520 first album was out and she'd sold 350 000 copies in the u.s by the time she came to revival not known

00:31:53.920 so she had the one song tim mcgraw but you know we and then we bump into taylor over the years as

00:31:59.840 her star escalates and we do the odd thing and she was always she always remembered the because i

00:32:06.400 interviewed her in nashville well before i did the shoot here in toronto and and there was this thing

00:32:11.840 called country radio seminars where all the artists were available and if you are the music director in

00:32:17.920 fargo you go to nashville toby keith takes you to a strip club and uh and then you go on radio row and

00:32:23.200 you get liners for your station and maybe you get an interviewer too of course but all the artists

00:32:26.800 were available good old days the good old days right and we also had a lot of artists made

00:32:31.840 available to us at cmt so we would go down and gather content but part of the deal was hey if

00:32:36.800 you want to interview so and so we got this new person so do me a favor interview our new person

00:32:43.360 we'll give you this person and i was just the producer the field producer but our on-air person was

00:32:48.240 like oh my god joel too many interviews i haven't heard of half of these people most of them were like

00:32:52.480 they finished 11th on american idol and now they have a record deal right she goes can you do this

00:32:57.120 next one i said sure it was taylor so and after that her managers that's the best interview we've

00:33:03.680 ever done like okay anyway that she just she just carried that and remembered all those years you

00:33:10.160 it's you she didn't remember joel but i have distinguished sideburns i have uh tried to mimic

00:33:17.760 those in my own life it is a patent only you have well uh greg keeler and i kind of uh keeler's the

00:33:24.880 more famous guy with bad grooming but uh i've kind of emulated keeler's grooming there a little bit

00:33:30.800 so let's talk about the biz yeah um as you know i spent many years producing independent television

00:33:39.440 yeah uh i heard no more than anybody in canada i've heard no more than any canadian you know why you

00:33:46.560 heard no why because you have the courage to ask and there's a lot of people who are afraid to ask

00:33:54.960 oh yeah if you're not afraid of the word no you're probably going to end up with a project

00:33:59.440 right it's so true you know good for you well you know if you saw the shows julie i think you'd have a

00:34:05.520 different difference talking dogs who discovered the true meaning of christmas so uh it's so bad what i

00:34:12.160 created i have to go to purgatory for a period of time after this work but um the one thing that i

00:34:18.720 have noticed over the years it's always been difficult in canada getting to air getting to concept getting

00:34:25.120 to development uh you know even once you're in development it means often means nothing um television

00:34:34.080 cancels and film studios cancel more than they will ever produce they produce more than they ever release

00:34:39.280 and what they release seems to be the tip of the grotesque iceberg and all of the great stuff has

00:34:44.480 been missed that is my personal experience rarely do we get a gem that is so good that we should see

00:34:52.080 it generally what i find is those gems are would have been invisible if you had seen the original pile

00:35:01.040 of concepts right and talent that was there um i don't think this is exclusive to canada no but it

00:35:07.680 certainly is magnified uh like the sun on skin in canada by comparison to i think other countries why

00:35:16.320 why oh i i i have an answer for why and of course i could be very wrong and if you have a disclaimer that

00:35:24.240 you put up that says uh some of the opinions shared on this show are not necessarily those of the

00:35:30.160 producers the hosts or the parent company actually probably the producer will agree so you can lump him

00:35:36.240 into the lawsuit i think there's there's that old expression whose idea was that so executives get

00:35:44.400 propelled up to high positions of authority usually because somebody took a chance and got fired if you

00:35:51.040 take a risk in the united states you get rewarded if you take a risk in canada you get punted and then

00:35:56.560 people move up uh i discovered over the course of time the meetings where i get called in to pitch an

00:36:05.280 idea or explain an idea or an idea would be put forward to me used to be more one-on-one and then

00:36:11.360 it was like eight people and nobody contributed anything to it except for the one person rarely anybody

00:36:17.680 taking notes even yeah very strange stuff but i always figured it was because and people would

00:36:25.520 no one would say that's a great idea because the next boss they have is going to walk in and said who

00:36:31.040 said that was a great idea and so now i don't think great ideas are being articulated or championed

00:36:36.960 because people are just afraid of losing their job i think that's really accurate i don't think i've

00:36:41.120 ever pitched a show where they didn't come back and say there's elements of this we like

00:36:46.240 sorry it's a show it's like all the elements together are the show yeah what if we and then

00:36:56.720 it begins to become a completely different concept yeah i ended up making a game show for guys that was

00:37:02.640 originally a steeplechase for all sexes but the network needed it to fit into their

00:37:09.680 not dangerous zone of content buying and i'll be honest with you it was a lower a lower profile

00:37:19.200 concept yeah but i think that that's the result of what you're talking about i i i i think so there's

00:37:26.160 just such a a a guiding fear you know and it used to be also we live in an era of notes right oh we

00:37:34.160 we we love we have this idea we want to get this person because they'd be perfect for it and then

00:37:40.560 you get the person who's perfect for it and then you tell them everything they're doing wrong and and

00:37:46.560 i i i think rather than saying bring what you have to we want you to do this how can we support you yeah

00:37:53.040 we we we hired you because you do this and you do this and you do this and you do it on budget and

00:37:58.160 can you do that here no we don't leave it at that no we say we want you to do this but you're not

00:38:03.520 really going to do it are you i'm not one of these people who carries around steve jobs quotes with me

00:38:09.600 but but he did say that lovely thing about we don't hire smart people to tell them what to do we hire

00:38:15.840 smart people so they can tell us what to do i did a series uh 12 part thing um it was kind of a

00:38:25.440 scripted factual type like a bit like duck dynasty and it was these fellows i found in mississippi

00:38:31.760 who grabbed snakes in their spare time and they were all members of the mississippi bureau of

00:38:35.600 narcotics and this is how they blew off stress it's crazy crazy stuff okay i love this concept

00:38:42.720 okay well i'll tell you okay i love this concept i want to see these guys rumble the duck dynasty guys

00:38:48.720 well they would have won uh my guys would have won they were all they were all care uh hidden conceal guys

00:38:54.960 that's pretty funny but uh i actually i was doing a travel food show with a country singer named jason

00:39:01.040 mccoy and we were in pilahatchie mississippi and he was at duke's steakhouse and jason was going to do

00:39:05.760 the 72 ounce steak challenge and so uh god bless the lovely oh he didn't you know we he had two bites

00:39:13.760 and then we all ate it and then we showed the empty plate but the the lovely lady who wow it was duke's

00:39:20.240 daughter but the place was packed the mayor of pilahatchie knox ross he was there the whole

00:39:25.120 restaurant was full and it was because cameras are coming so everyone comes to the restaurant

00:39:30.480 uh make it look busy and uh these guys were there like hey how are you doing and they're handing out

00:39:34.960 these shirts with the snakes on them and i'm like what's going on i couldn't understand and they're

00:39:40.320 handing me these dvds and we're wrapping out and and i said to i think their name is shirley i said

00:39:47.280 shirley your friends are really nice i'm sorry i wasn't able to pay much attention well they're

00:39:50.400 big rock stars around here i said what do they do again well they kind of grab snakes with their

00:39:54.320 hands you know like instead of fishing i'm like and why do they do that well they all work for the

00:39:58.480 business super bureau narcotics and i'm like okay now i have an idea so we end up going down there we

00:40:05.360 build this whole little world with these guys and they would take people out in the water and and and

00:40:10.160 people would grab snakes off trees and and get bit and wow and we were and i just thought i was

00:40:16.640 sitting on a gold mine i thought this is the next duck times yeah we're looking for the next duck

00:40:20.960 dynasty i'm like i think i have it for you and then all these executives who by the way again put

00:40:28.000 up the disclaimer this opinion is only mine and not that i might share this opinion i think i know where

00:40:33.760 this is going so working as life coaches now because anyway they didn't know anything about

00:40:40.000 television right most of the people that i dealt with that were buying tv yeah

00:40:43.680 i don't even know if they subscribe to television no and nor do they have a passion for it no but

00:40:50.240 but it has to be so i mean that show aired and uh you know i'll take 13 of those right now as soon

00:40:57.440 as you can get them to me it got a sale on amazon you know so but but it wasn't it wasn't the show i

00:41:04.080 did they watered it down they shot all these you know those terrible interviews or well i'm really excited

00:41:09.360 today we're going to bring a truck in and load up a thing in the truck and then the show well the

00:41:13.760 truck was having trouble back in all those little it's called a confessional but we uh we've turned

00:41:18.960 it from a confessional to uh narration yeah and it was just like oh all the guts all the and it and it

00:41:26.080 really it did me in man i i think i had a i think in hindsight i had a nervous breakdown or something

00:41:34.400 i remember very specifically i got some notes back on an episode why does the character do that

00:41:40.800 here in that moment i said oh thank you for asking uh here's why because in the episode

00:41:45.840 two episodes earlier which you haven't seen yet because you asked us to cut this one first

00:41:49.840 uh that character experiences this and then in episode seven there's a thing there but oh yeah

00:41:56.400 we'll just change it anyway you know like well then why are you asking why why did you ask me to

00:42:01.280 explain you know if you really want maybe i can maybe i can tweak it to reflect your concern about

00:42:08.000 it nah just anyway it was just and i'm not saying i'm right all the time but i was because i i'm a i'm

00:42:15.440 a firm believer that best idea wins yeah but often it gets to the studio the network or even the

00:42:22.320 representation you know i uh was involved in a project and this is the other thing people don't

00:42:26.800 realize souls road was presented to you in 98 yes it was released in 2025 yes so there you go there's

00:42:36.480 there's my first note on the entertainment business in canada right there and yes i know brooke broke

00:42:42.240 back mountain took 25 years of a script being passed around yeah gangs in new york they all that's okay

00:42:47.840 but those are those are not industry driving projects those are flashes of gold in the night

00:42:56.000 the industry requires projects to keep moving and it just seems like the wrong ones or the right ones

00:43:02.000 get watered down like they're talking about and i watched a a dear friend of mine who's an incredible

00:43:07.280 writer i mean one of the funniest writers i will ever meet in my life and i've met a lot of them

00:43:12.880 and i remember meetings around a television show with this individual where the two people advising him

00:43:19.680 they were the writers and this person was no longer the writer of their own series because they were

00:43:24.960 not a member of some cockamamie union that matters to nobody else in the world but here in canada

00:43:32.560 and watched them with my own eyes ruin his writing i remember feeling devastated by this

00:43:42.240 and thinking how can i recover from seeing this happen and it was a mark on this person that they

00:43:49.600 continued with the project anyway because they were honorable about completing it yeah but the

00:43:56.480 devastation that was placed upon the project by non-creative people was astounding and i think that

00:44:04.240 that's a common reality it it it is and it's unnecessary i mean you know like if if if if if you have a

00:44:15.840 director or a writer with a unique voice exploit the voice harness that voice don't change that voice if

00:44:26.000 if it don't don't neuter that voice you know we we have great writers we have capable directors more

00:44:34.640 than capable drive i'm not talking about me i'm talking about like lowell dean in saskatchewan i'm

00:44:38.880 talking about sherry white in newfoundland i'm you know david kronenberg in toronto we have we have

00:44:44.640 denny villeneuve canadian is making the the biggest movies in america kind of guillermo del

00:44:50.720 toro am i wrong he lives in toronto most of the time yes yes he he goes to the review cinema yes we

00:44:56.480 we have uh we have these voices um they're not getting they're not getting their work seen because

00:45:05.360 i have a friend who directed a five million dollar movie about the life of terry sawcheck and i may

00:45:09.840 have the number wrong on this one that won the canadian screen award for best actor i believe the

00:45:14.320 marketing budget was twenty thousand dollars that's the other side of this we don't do a good job of

00:45:19.680 showing off to the world what we have no i mean if an american studio gets involved or cbs studios

00:45:26.320 are financing it here in canada they tend to why still you're at the bottom of the marketing rung

00:45:32.560 yeah yeah i mean but you know using the the uh american example that if they spend 100 million on

00:45:39.360 the movie they spend 100 million on marketing they match a dollar for dollar it's kind of just the

00:45:44.000 the the thing that happens um and it's and it is tough you're asking you're asking your audience to

00:45:56.560 you know like those yellowstone shows that 1883 the one with harrison ford and that's like 23 million

00:46:01.920 an episode us right so how are you going to compete with that uh you know in terms of aesthetics it's

00:46:08.560 tough that way it's funny that we we look at canada's natural resources right yeah and we've

00:46:13.680 put all this money into that only recently it's on the budget a little bit's going toward art and

00:46:18.080 culture but our greatest natural resource untapped to me is the new hollywood of the world we have

00:46:25.920 every single location you could need for anything that you want to shoot and and our crews are

00:46:31.200 spectacular which is why americans keep coming up here but you know like here's the thing here's the

00:46:36.080 thing like it was around i don't know 2015 where they they changed the cancon requirements you know

00:46:43.600 we had there was a point system wherein you had to have eight out of ten points yeah

00:46:49.680 and then during the trudeau government uh they reduced that to six which means oh you could have

00:46:56.400 an american producer an american star and an american director um now the reason the government did that

00:47:04.240 is because bell rogers and chorus were lobbying for that to happen because you know they're running

00:47:12.160 a business and think ncia you've got to compete with us networks with big stars yes but they big

00:47:17.520 looks they didn't believe in the the country that is making them profit you know and so well there's

00:47:26.080 just all kinds of different opportunities that are gone for canadians because of the loss and

00:47:31.360 and i'm not saying funny because bell and rogers and all these guys with media outlets make all of

00:47:36.320 their money on internet uh mobility telecom they're not making money on media no but they're not making

00:47:47.920 money on media because they're not really competing in the market that's right they have the money they

00:47:53.040 have the means they have the eyeballs and the ears they don't invest in it because they don't have to

00:47:59.040 just enough to keep their deal with the crtc exactly oh and then they changed they changed the

00:48:05.360 regulatory spin see this is the interesting thing 20 years from now you're not going to see anybody

00:48:09.360 like me you know who does i i hope not exactly i you know i did tier two cable for a lot of years

00:48:17.280 and i did it at a very high level and i maximized those budgets and i did all those things i had that

00:48:21.840 opportunity at that time we were mandated by the crtc for our license that 11 of our network cmt's gross

00:48:30.560 revenues would go towards fostering of canadian talent musicians we we paid for videos we paid for

00:48:37.760 the shows i did i mcguire's countdown show it all came out of that 11 when they did the restructure

00:48:44.480 about cancon they said oh it no longer has to be 11 of ytv money going back into ytv or 11 of cmt

00:48:52.960 money going into cmt uh because you're a big company global you can spend all that money

00:48:58.480 on your next global show so then all the funding for all of our shows just went into international

00:49:04.800 purchase yes or or or or yeah or or just higher which is great higher budgets for those marquee shows

00:49:11.840 made in canada uh which is which is great except that whole incubator of young kids doing host hits

00:49:19.680 on ytv who also are going to take the camera and borrow it on a weekend and do a short film of their

00:49:23.760 own that's not going to happen anymore because they don't have those jobs anymore um so you're going

00:49:28.800 to see that kind of vanish and you know and and it's and it's kind of heartbreaking because it was fun

00:49:35.600 and also you know i sit there go why did why did they do all that we were making money like our

00:49:40.560 thing was making money our little our little network was making money but it was never enough

00:49:44.720 money it's so funny that never enough is the key right yeah um we have to be able to make enough

00:49:49.600 to pay attention to this as part of the conglomerate i think uh first of all i i'm delighted that you're

00:49:56.160 in the film in the film bubble now as a released producer director um because i i know you're writing

00:50:05.680 and i and i uh i see your future really bright based on the movie that i just witnessed what is joel

00:50:13.040 going to do moving forward well it's a great question uh you can't just sit on this movie laurel

00:50:23.440 no no no i mean i i've got to be honest with you as one of your friends we just want the next thing

00:50:27.280 hurry up uh i mean i have a a couple out there that that i hope happen you know it is a process

00:50:33.520 right it's such it's such a thing um so i have a couple that i have in front of some people and

00:50:40.160 i'm going to hear no and then i'm going to put it in front of some other people and i'm going to hear

00:50:44.080 no um joel may i be the first to say to you no yeah take it elsewhere but not the last i don't mind

00:50:55.840 no i i like that you were told no a lot because that means you have the balls to get out there and

00:51:02.080 do that and that's where i fall a little short i'm a terrible self-promoter i would say that about you

00:51:08.880 uh you're just a humble guy but i don't think that's because you don't see the value in it i think that

00:51:13.680 the value i think everyone's crazy if they don't hire me like what are you doing i really do agree

00:51:19.920 i would agree with that like i just don't get it the best guy to hire is joel and i think that uh we

00:51:24.880 saw that with this film and and your career but the one thing that i will say is when you're behind the

00:51:29.040 scenes making these moves in an honorable way the way that i've always watched you do it the way

00:51:34.720 mcguire and all of these fabulous talents around you have watched you do it i've ventured to guess

00:51:42.320 that many of us stay tighter to the industry because of the hope of people like you that

00:51:48.240 there'll be another joel that i can work with that uh somebody who understands my art form like joel did

00:51:55.280 uh that the inspiration given by feeling good in that moment that cmt joel and paul provided me

00:52:03.120 launched my career i don't think that is easily replaceable it certainly has made you an icon in the

00:52:10.400 business and i really appreciate you taking the time to come in well i'll show up anywhere i get

00:52:15.440 called an icon thank you very much let's make a note nick we should be uh sending out emails dear icon

00:52:21.920 please come on i really appreciate this man you're the best thank you very much

True Patriot Love - December 01, 2025

How Joel Stewart Reinvented Canadian Entertainment

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