Changemaker: Acting coach, screen villain and ACTRA Alberta vice-president Chad Rook is creating a community of thespians who are landing work
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'We have an endless amount of actors who are working full time. They are always booking,' he says.
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'It's almost every week that one of our students is booking something locally. We have grown our community. We have different social media with all of our students and we're always helping each other out. We have well over 100 actors in the community right now.'
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Rook has spent time on film and TV sets in Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York and Europe, but is Calgary-based at the moment. He left for Vancouver after graduating from Picture Butte High School, initially to pursue a career as a model. He soon began landing TV roles in Vancouver.
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Recent roles have included playing Billy the Kid antagonist James Dolan in the Alberta-shot series, which earned him a Leo Award in 2023. He played CFL player Jackie Parker, who played with the Edmonton Eskimos in the 1950s, in a Heritage Minute segment about Norman Kwong. He played a deputy in two seasons of Joe Pickett, as well.
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Rook credits his time in Vancouver studying under Canadian actor Ty Olsson, known for his roles in Supernatural and Flight 93, as changing both his views on the industry and the trajectory of his career.
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'He was very direct and told me what works and what doesn't work — to stop the bullsh-t and (do) what is needed,' Rook says. 'When I had a coach who did that, my career changed immediately because I knew what to do and what not to do. That's when I was like, 'people need to know about this.'
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'Unfortunately, there is — and I don't mind saying this, I'm a pretty direct guy — so many bad coaches and classes out there because you are out there learning from people who are not even successful at what they are trying to teach you to do. They are not even working actors. They quit the industry 20 years ago because it was too hard, and now they are teaching you what didn't even work for them.'
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Rook, on the other hand, continues to be a busy actor, with the Internet Movie Database listing 10 upcoming titles scheduled for 2025.
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Perhaps inadvertently, he has carved out a niche for himself playing villains. He got his first major break playing supervillain Clyde Mardon, a.k.a. the Weather Wizard, in 2014 episodes of The Flash. In the NBC sci-fi series Timeless, he played a ruthless henchman to the main villain played by Goran Visnjic. In the 2017 blockbuster War for the Planet of the Apes, he played the aggressive military man, Boyle, who serves under the chief antagonist played by Woody Harrelson.
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One of the more high-profile future projects is a role in HBO's IT: Welcome to Derry, a prequel to Stephen King's novel and the two films based on it that were released in 2017 and 2019. It was filmed in Hamilton, Ont.
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