Luke Macfarlane ready for comedy in Satisfaction

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Luke Macfarlane ready for comedy in Satisfaction

London, Ontario native stars in CTV series debuting June 24 with Leah Renee and Ryan Belleville

BELL MEDIA PHOTO

Ryan Belleville as Mark Movenpick, Leah Renee as Maggie Bronson and Luke Macfarlane as

Jason Howell in CTV's Satisfaction, which debuts June 24 at 8 p.m.

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By:Bill Brioux Special to the Star, Published on Fri Jun 21 2013

Luke Macfarlane decided that there was just too much drama in his life. So he switched over to comedy.

The London, Ont., native starred for five seasons on Brothers and Sisters, where he played husband to Kevin Walker (Matthew Rhys from The Americans), one of the “brothers” on the series.

Before that, he was a modern-day soldier in the front-line drama Over There.

“That was my first television show,” says Macfarlane, a Juilliard grad with off-Broadway credits before landing the FX soldier series. Legendary executive producer Steven Bochco was the showrunner. What could go wrong? Macfarlane could already see himself “on the cover of every magazine.”

Then the series was cancelled after one season. “It really put into perspective how difficult the entire process is and how rare it is to really connect.”

Fortunately, he rebounded straight into Brothers and Sisters and a five-year U.S. network run.

He's hoping for similar luck on his new series, Satisfaction (debuting June 24 at 8 p.m.).The CTV sitcom, created and executive produced by Tim McAuliffe (The Office, This Hour has 22 Minutes), stars Macfarlane opposite Toronto native Leah Renee (The Playboy Club).

They play Jason and Maggie, a frisky young couple who share their downtown apartment with Jason's BBF Mark, played by Ryan Belleville (Almost Heroes). Pat Thornton, Thomas Mitchell, Nikki Payne and 22 Minutes funnyman Mark Critch, as shell-shocked neighbour Gary Breakfast, make up the comedy ensemble.

Between takes on the Toronto set, Macfarlane said he is hoping to emulate the career paths of actors like Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling: “guys who were able to straddle everything,” he says.

Cooper, he points out, went from TV drama (Jack & Bobby) to action shows (Alias) to Broadway before becoming a film star in The Hangover and Silver Linings Playbook.

Macfarlane has been on a similar path. Satisfaction is the 33-year-old's first job back in Canada in ages. “Since I graduated school really,” he says.

The move back to Canada and into comedy couldn't come at a better time, figures Belleville.

The Just for Laughs comedy fest veteran has felt that, for several years, there's been a sitcom “vacuum in Canada.” Like a lot of Canadian performers, he tried his luck in the States, enjoying a short run on the 2005 Fox comedy Life on a Stick, where he worked with fellow Canuck Rachelle Lefevre (Under the Dome).

The Calgary native returned in 2011 to co-write and star in the Showcase comedy Almost Heroes. That failed to stick, but he's optimistic about Satisfaction.

“I feel like there's a renaissance, like when Flashpoint came out and Rookie Blue, and all the networks realized, ‘Oh, we should make dramas' . . . and I feel like, right now, that thing is happening for comedy.”

There does seem to be, if not an explosion, a surge in Canadian comedy production. Besides CBC's Mr. D, City is producing two sitcoms: Seed (like Mr. D, shot in Halifax) and the fall four-camera sitcom Package Deal, starring Harland Williams. Besides Satisfaction, CTV has the shot-in-Toronto sitcom Spun Out, which stars Dave Foley as the head of a PR firm. The comedy will join their schedule sometime next season.

Macfarlane says he's impressed that CTV is “trying to create a comic voice that also feels really contemporary and urban. We've seen comedies out of Canada featuring “rural dwellers,” he says, not naming Corner Gas. He likes that both Satisfaction and Spun Out are set in the city.

Renee says she's ready for her comedy close-up, too, and enjoying this cast. “Luke and Ryan are like my brothers. We've been joking around and hanging out all day.”

The series is based on McAuliffe's real-life experience sharing a city apartment with a couple while he tried to make it as a comedy writer.

Jessica Pare, who guests later in the season, used to crash on the couch of that apartment, long before her Mad Men success. Other guest stars include Andy Kindler, Gordon Pinsent and Jerry O'Connell. Jason Priestley and Mike Clattenburg (Trailer Park Boys) are among the directors.

Belleville's character is pretty much based on McAuliffe. His advice to the actor: “You need someone incredibly funny to play me, so don't even try.”

As for Macfarlane and Renee, Critch says not only do they have the comedy chops, they're perfectly cast as romantic leads.

Quips Critch: “They're attractive enough for American television.”