Evan Raine stars alongside Riley Keough, Lily Gladstone

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Actor Evan Raine has a habit of not looking up his colleagues' past credits when he lands a new job.

When the Red Deer-born actor landed a recurring role on the Hulu/Disney+ crime miniseries, he didn't know much about the impressive ancestry of two stars: Elvis Presley's Emmy-nominated great-grandson, Riley Keough. ; and descendant of Montana-born Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone Mi'kai'stoowa, or Red Crow, leader of the Kainai tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy in the 19th century.

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“There's something I'm not rooting for any of the cast or anybody I'm working with, so I don't understand what they've done,” Raine says in an interview from her home in Vancouver. . “I like to meet them for who they are, a clean slate with no preconceived notions.”

Under the Bridge, which retells the gruesome 1997 slaying of 14-year-old Rina Virk in British Columbia, was shot between January and March 2023, less than two years after Gladstone made The Moonlight Killers with director Martin Scorsese. and actor Leonardo DiCaprio. It was a role that earned the actress a Golden Globe Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, a first for an American actress.

“Lily was talking about this movie she worked on with Leonardo DiCaprio – just little anecdotes and really humble,” Rein says. “It comes naturally. He is one of the most humble people I have ever met. But these little conversations come up and I'm like, “What movie is he talking about?” And then, of course, he came out, and I was just blown away, and then he won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar, and I was so excited to see him rocket in that role.”

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In Under the Bridge, both Raine and Gladstone play police officers investigating Kirk's disappearance. They eventually discovered that he had been killed by other teenagers in a brutal crime that shocked Canadians. Both characters – Gladstone plays investigating officer Cam Bentland and Raine plays rookie police officer Dan Gardener – are fictional creations. But Keough's character, writer and journalist Rebecca Godfrey, is based on the author of the book the miniseries is based on. He died shortly after Hulu announced in 2022 that it was adapting the book into a miniseries.

The eight-part series, which will debut on Hulu on April 17 and later air on Disney+ for Canadian viewers, will follow the investigation and explore Virk's family and the teenagers accused and eventually prosecuted for the murder. The crime made headlines, and Godfrey spent years investigating teenagers in Saanich, BC, near Victoria, where the murders took place. The case sparked a national conversation because Kirk's parents were activists who raised awareness about racism and bullying.

But Raine admits she knew nothing about the case before taking on the role.

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“I would have been five years old,” he says. “There seems to be a real difference in the age of people who hear about it. People 10 years older than me who talk to me say, “Yes, I remember that story.” I think it's going to be great for the show to come out and it's just going to spread the story, which is a really sad but important Canadian story.”

In January 2023, the tragic death of his mother, Lisa Marie Presley, temporarily halted production, but Rayne did not have many scenes with Keo. The cast also includes veteran character actors Matt Craven and Brian Markinson. Appearing in five of the eight episodes, Raine says she considered her time filming her learning experience.

“When I come to work on set, I just try to be a sponge,” he says. “I watched Riley very closely and he seemed very focused and absorbed in his character. We had this one scene and we had this moment of connection before everything was set up and the cameras started rolling. We were doing this scene together and there was a moment where we were silently looking into each other's eyes. It just energized the scene. There was something amazing about it. When they called the action, it felt like there was a great connection and it brought the scene to life.”

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Under the Bridge may not be Reign's biggest role in terms of screen time – he starred in the indie drama Blue House – but it's his highest profile.

Born in Red Deer, Raine grew up on a farm outside of Eckville and was inspired to play a neighbor, a rancher, and a loose stuntman named Shane Pollitt. Pollitt has worked on everything from HBO's The Last of Us to Brokeback Mountain, and her son Strahn is an actor. Rein began working with Red Deer's Cornerstone Youth Theater and moved to Calgary after graduation. His first starring role was a guest appearance on CBC's Heartland 10 years ago, where he played a Hutterite teenager. After moving to Vancouver, he continued to work in the theater, playing small roles in several series. He recently starred in a Shakespeare-Beatles production at the Washington and Calgary Theatre.

“There are things I like in theater, movies, and TV,” he says. “As an actor, I never want to paint myself in a corner and say I'm only doing this or that. I think long-term, film and television are my heartstrings. It's just like a wide world and there's so much to explore. I feel like I'm just getting into it.

“I love theater because it's tighter, more community-based. All my friends in Vancouver, where I live now, are theater people, and I know everyone in the room whenever I do theater work. That's the cute thing about it. When it comes to my career and where I'm going with it, there's a lot to explore in film and television.”

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