Hugh Dillon is nominated for a best actor Gemini for his leading role as the tormented detective Mike Sweeney in Durham County. Season one of the dark series from Montreal’s Muse Entertainment and Toronto-based Back Alley Films shot in Montreal in late 2006.

Dillon is back in Montreal shooting season two of The Movie Network series, and was unavailable to talk with Playback, but wrote via email that he is ‘honoured to be associated with Durham County’s gifted team and to be among such talented nominees.’

Born in Kingston, ON, the 45-year-old actor got his start in film and television by way of the music biz. As the lead singer for Canadian punk band The Headstones, Dillon caught the eye of Bruce McDonald and was cast in the acclaimed filmmaker’s 1995 film Dance Me Outside. The following year he went on to play Joe Dick in Hard Core Logo, one of McDonald’s best-known films, about a punk band’s last tour.

Dillon starred in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival award-winning feature Down to the Bone, with Vera Farmiga (The Departed), and has appeared in such films as Lone Hero (2002), cult prequel Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning (2004), Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), also starring Ethan Hawke, and Trailer Park Boys: The Movie, for which he received a 2007 Genie nom for best supporting actor.

More recently, Dillon appeared in Justin Simms’ Down to the Dirt, recent winner of the best Atlantic feature award at the Atlantic Film Festival.

After shooting the first season of Durham County, Dillon landed the role of Ed Lane in the CTV/CBS series Flashpoint, which shot in Toronto last spring. It was his first big TV role to reach a major American audience. Produced by Toronto’s Pink Sky Entertainment and Avamar Entertainment, the cop series about the high-risk cases handled by the Strategic Response Unit has attracted average audiences around seven million to CBS and 1.1 million to CTV in its first season.

Dillon has also appeared on the Canadian small screen in shows such as The Eleventh Hour, ReGenesis and Degrassi: The Next Generation.

Between film and television shoots, the busy actor has kept up his music career, and recently found time to record a new album, Works Well with Others, produced by The Tragically Hip’s Paul Langlois.