After 10 years, Toronto-born actor and producer Adam Rodness’s penchant for working on different and diverse projects is starting to pay real dividends.
In the past year, Rodness, 30, landed a recurring role on season two of the Netflix hit horror series Hemlock Grove, executive produced by Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel), set for release on July 11 at midnight.
Rodness says he initially auditioned for one episode, but once shooting began in Toronto, his character became more integral to the show.
“That’s how this business is,” he says. “You audition for a one-liner and you get a monologue. Things can turn on a dime.”
Working alongside established actors Famke Janssen (X-Men, Taken) and Bill Skarsgård (Anna Karenina), Rodness — who plays an assistant to the lead character — says his main challenge was to not let his nerves get the best of him.
Fortunately for him the atmosphere on the set was supportive and collaborative.
“It’s one of the greatest learning experiences I’ve had in my acting career,” says Rodness. “You couldn’t pay to have that kind of education from two known acting pros like Bill and Famke.”
One in the growing stable of Netflix original drama series, Hemlock Grove explores the creepy goings-on in a fictional Pennsylvania town.
Though he can’t divulge too much about where the plot is headed this season, he says the content continues to be very dark — “American Horror Story meets Twin Peaks.”
Rodness, who pitches and produces television projects between acting gigs, credits Netflix for taking risks on creating cutting-edge content like Hemlock Grove, House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black, which is attracting audiences in new ways.
“Netflix is taking the lead on the future of TV, which is turning to digital. Kids no longer want to sit in front of the tube — they want to be in front of iPods and Androids,” he says.
Though downtime seems more the exception than the norm in life these days, the newly married Rodness and his wife also like to consume the network’s productions and are prone to binge watching episodes of Orange Is the New Black.
(Having recently purchased a house in midtown, they are also prone to frequenting nearby taco hot spots like Playa Cabana and Grand Electric.)
As a television producer, Rodness has been touring the globe shooting an art documentary featuring Rubik’s Cube artists for The Biography Channel, set to air in early 2015.
The idea for the project came to Rodness when he met artist Josh Chalom at a Christmas party and discovered there was a huge underground culture that exists called Rubik’s Cubism that uses the ’80s puzzle sensation to recreate great works of art.
“I thought, ‘Wow, what an interesting concept,’ ” he says.
He’s already filmed exhibits in New York, Los Angeles and Moscow.
Rodness is matter-of-fact about his recent success and chalks it up to his ability to “wear a lot of different hats.”
Though he’s committed to his career in acting, he says he’s found the best way to keep his creative juices flowing between gigs is to develop his own projects.
When he started out in the industry he says he’d cold-call production companies to pitch ideas and gain experience. Now, he says, he’s actually being listened to.
“I always have about 10 projects on the go — about half will get some interest, about half of those will go somewhere and about half of those will be green-lit or see some funding.”
A performer at heart, Rodness grew up in Thornhill north of Toronto and gained stage experience at an early age.
His parents were weekend wedding singers who began bringing Rodness onstage with them when he was five years old and let him accompany them on the maracas or drums.
“My parents were famous in our suburban Jewish community,” he says.
Rodness attended Westmount Collegiate Institute and met a group of friends who he still keeps in touch with and who all ended up pursuing creative interests.
“Thornhill breeds creativity — it’s weird how all of us came from the same suburb and we are in the same industry.”
After graduating from high school, Rodness moved to Los Angeles with money he’d saved, hoping to be discovered.
“I just went and I really thought someone would see me and say, ‘You’re a star.’ ”
Once his money ran out, he returned home to Toronto and started thinking about a fallback plan that would still include his creative side.
After finding an agent, he began going on professional auditions and at the same time enrolled in a radio and television broadcasting program at Seneca College.
His first paid gig was as a host/VJ for the specialty Canadian dance music channel bpm:tv.
Eventually he started gaining acting credits, first as the lead in the horror film Surviving. He acted alongside the late Toronto-born actor and former teen idol Cory Haim in the film Shark City (2009), about young professionals living in Manhattan who get involved with the mob.
Although the unpredictability of the industry might scare others away, Rodness says it’s what keeps him going.
“The only way you fail in this business is if you give up — because the next day you could be pushed into the next phase of your career — things change quickly, and that’s part of the excitement of it,” he says.
Case in point, Rodness was recently excited to learn The Seder — a lighthearted short film he starred in that was well-received on the festival circuit — is being turned into a feature film set to shoot in Toronto this fall.
(Rodness plays a gay man meeting his boyfriend’s parents for the first time.)
Rodness says he’s never questioned his commitment to a career in show business, whether it be in front of the camera or behind it.
“I couldn’t picture myself doing anything else,” he says. “Even the time when I thought I wanted to be a cop — then I thought, ‘I’d rather be a cop on TV.’ ”
