Laszlo Barna
Nine-time Gemini Award-winning producer

‘What’s it like to win a Gemini? It’s the top of the mountain. To be judged by your peers to be the best is a huge thing. Now, having gotten a few Geminis, can I say that it’s the same excitement as it was when there was not one shining object in our office? No, it’s not the same. Does it give you the same status, the same feeling? Absolutely.

‘Speaking pragmatically, does winning the Gemini help a show? No. It’s not like winning an Emmy or an Oscar. I’ve never looked on Geminis as a marketing tool for sales abroad or even for garnering an audience in Canada.

‘Domestically, in the company’s early years, it made a difference for us in getting our next projects made. The Geminis are special for the broadcasters, the producers, the stars, the writers, the directors. But it’s restricted to Canadian payback.’

Jan Peter Meyboom
Four-time Gemini Award nominee
Meyboom can’t recall the infamous night when production partner Ken Finkleman got up to accept a Gemini Award that he hadn’t in fact won. ‘I was probably more drunk than Ken that night,’ he offers.
But Meyboom can talk about this year’s nominees, having served on one of the juries.
‘There wasn’t an obvious winner,’ he says. ‘Nothing was head-and-shoulders above the others. The competition was tough. [The Academy] locked us in a room and we weren’t allowed to leave. We had to watch at least half of every [nominated] show. It’s cool to see shows that you might not have seen and realize how good some can be. The talk [among the jury] was interesting. Everyone had an opinion, because we’re all in the business. It was fascinating to see how everyone all came to the same place. No one has an agenda.’

Michael Riley
Four-time Gemini Award-winning actor, and a nominee again this year for This Is Wonderland

‘This year, my daughter Dylan is my date, and that’s my focus for the Gala evening. She’s 10 and she’s going to get a fancy dress. I’ve got a room at the InterContinental and am bringing my parents…

‘The Geminis are an opportunity for the community to get together once a year and celebrate the work that’s been done. Socially, it’s like a wedding, where everyone you’ve known for years, and whom you never get to see, is there. You’d love to sit down and have dinner with so many old friends, but you know you’ll only get a chance to talk to a quarter of them.

‘I’m very fortunate to have won some awards. You can only accept Geminis or other awards on behalf of all the people you’ve been working with… This Is Wonderland has a huge ensemble of fine actors. We all feel like we’ve caught lightning in a bottle.’

Riley recalls winning his third Gemini in 2000 for the hockey-business drama series Power Play, which by that time had already been cancelled.

‘It could only happen in this country! Emmys have a commercial value. Here, there are stories about people winning awards and not working for the next two years.’

Julie Stewart
Won for best actress in a continuing leading role for Cold Squad (2002), and is a nominee again this year

‘The final season of Cold Squad sat on the shelf for a year, so the episode [nominated this year] was shot over two years ago. It’s a funny feeling, because that show was the last one we made. It was intense on a lot of levels, partly because of the subject matter, but partly because [the cast and crew] knew we were saying goodbye – again! [laughs] It’s gratifying that people hadn’t forgotten about us. I kind of thought they had. This is a nicer way to say goodbye.

‘It was really nice to win [the Gemini]. I had been nominated [five] times – it was such a relief for my husband and my mother. I was getting so tired of going back to Vancouver to the set of Cold Squad, being a trooper and watching the rest of the crew trying to not look sorry or sad for me, wondering why I didn’t get it.

‘Everyone wants to win. Three-hundred-and-sixty-four days of the year you’re capable of being completely rational about whether it actually means anything about your work or anyone else’s. But in that moment, you want to win. I was so relieved that I didn’t party as much as I have on many nights when I’ve lost.’