An hour after the Toronto International Film Festival screening of Swann, Traders lead David Cubitt, a bit player in the film, leans against the bar at Zango and calls the term ‘Canadian star system’ an oxymoron.

It’s a little strange coming from him, top of the list of Canadian tv talent making headlines this year, but he’s convinced he’ll have to move south to further his career.

Five months later, the Gemini nominees are announced. Front-page ink on the homegrown industry, and Cubitt with the highest profile nomination amongst the Traders cast for best performance by an actor in a continuing leading dramatic role. So the question begs, is being honored by Canada’s version of the Emmy Awards a step forward in the quest for stardom?

‘Oh God,’ he deadpans, over the phone from Vancouver, ‘it’s supposed to be the kiss of death.’

Not a particularly inspiring reference considering the status quo with Traders’ broadcaster CanWest Global.

If the theory holds, key members of the Traders team are within walking distance of an untimely demise. All told, there are 10 nominations for the series; five for performance (Cubitt, Terri Hawkes, Janet C.A. Bailey, David Hewlett and David Gardner), three for writing (Hart Hanson, David Shore, Tim Southam), best dramatic series and best original music score. Not bad for a series set in an investment house, filled with dialogue that makes ‘get me a c-spine, O2 negative, and prep a diproxy fibrillator’ seem comprehensible by comparison.

Much is at stake for the Traders cast and crew over the next month. Gemini verdicts aside, the official go-ahead for season three is pending from CanWest, which is using Traders, Jake and the Kid and Ready or Not as pawns in its quest to reopen the Alberta decision.

Although serious questions surround the future of Jake, Ready or Not and the New Producers Series, odds are on a new season for Traders, which will likely begin shooting in May and could go to 22 episodes this time, versus the 13 for the last two seasons. In the meantime, this year’s Gemini nominations afford the time to reflect on season one.

By many reports, the first year of shooting spawned that ‘dream family’ aura that blesses some creative projects. In the course of 14 weeks, the ensemble managed to take an unlikely setting, solid character creation, and dead brilliant writing and, with the help of a promotions blowout courtesy of CanWest, outdistance Due South as the highest profile Canadian dramatic series on the screen. Yes, it aired opposite er and ratings were mediocre at best, but within the ranks, it was rainbow.

‘It was such a joyous experience,’ says cast member Terri Hawkes. ‘Truly magical.’

Hawkes, who played the deceptively dizzy yet brilliant blond researcher Monika Barnes and is nominated for ‘The Big Picture’ episode, remembers a late-night cast party, a pure ‘love-fest,’ but at some point, Street Legal veteran Sonja Smits, who plays Sally Ross, made the point: ‘It’s never going to be quite like this again.’

‘We knew she was right,’ says Hawkes, the voice of Sailor Moon and starring in Paper Trail with Michael Madsen and Chris Penn this fall.

In season two, tension surrounding change-over in the writing department, politics, and the losing parts of the crew including dop Mike McMurray who did a lot to set the tone, did make dents in the fun quotient. But the fundamentals that took root first season – character and writing – only got better.

Writer Hart Hanson, nominated for ‘Dancing with Mr. D,’ created the characters after CanWest Global president Jim Sward requested a series based on the investment industry three years ago. Today they are, says Hanson, ‘the best cast in Canadian television.’

‘Some of them have seized the character and taken it to a level way beyond what we envisioned. Patrick McKenna, for example, has made Marty a bigger part of the story than we planned just by virtue of his talent, the way he plays it. We put words into his mouth that no human being would say, and somehow he will suggest in the midst of all the technobabble, the emotion behind it.’

Executive producer Alyson Feltes makes the point that one reason the show works is that Traders consists of complicated characters, pointing to David Cubitt’s character Jack Larkin as an example.

Although all the bad-boy cliches have been applied to the Clooneyesque Cubitt, he brings more to the table than a pretty face, says Feltes. ‘I had an almost physical reaction to him at the audition. Not because he’s a cute guy, although that’s important to the role, but because of how he speaks, moves, carries himself.’

Hanson agrees. Handsome, charismatic, magnetic, electric apply, but Cubitt’s brought the idea of mischief to the character, the idea that the devil is whispering in his ear.

‘If the character isn’t having fun, how could we expect the audience to have fun surrounded by all this stock trading jargon? He’s sexy and that’s important. He also has violent undercurrents that he keeps under control, and we adapted to him in that way. We had huge expectations for this role and he met them right off the top.’

Cubitt, 31, credits the free speech climate between the writers and actors with contributing to the achievement.

It’s not theater where the actors have time to learn to inhabit somebody else’s words and character, says Cubitt, who is working on development deals with cbs and abc.

‘You get the script the day before in tv and the collaboration is vital because you’re on the fly. We’re blessed to have writers with solid egos, so you can make suggestions and they’re willing to listen.’

Laughing, Hanson says Cubitt is one of the few actors that has ever come to him protesting his character has too many words. ‘He knows the enigmatic element of his character. Bruce Grey is the same. They both bring a presence to the characters and want them to be round, consistent, believable.’