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Wayward creator on casting comedy legend in the Netflix show: Don't just meet your heroes, "beat the shit" out of them

Mae Martin, Breakout star of Netflix's teen thriller Wayward, has been a fan (and friend!) of Kids in the Hall's Mark McKinney for years. Which doesn't mean it wasn't fun to beat him up on set

Mae Martin is making the jump from comedy to drama in new Netflix thriller Wayward, but fortunately, there's a comedy legend doing it right by their side. That would be Kids in the Hall's own Mark McKinney, who Martin reports can not only do opposite ends of the acting spectrum, but can take a hell of a punch. A fake one, of course. 

The story comes out of an interview Martin did with Deadline regarding their character, Alex Dempsey, a cop who gets roped into the missing teen case at the heart of the Toni Collette starring Netflix chiller. Of the many things they loved about working on the Wayward set, getting to interact with costar McKinney was a special favorite, and not just because they've been a fan of his for a long time. Acccording to Martin, the two have a history.

"I babysat for him when I was 13," Martin explains, "And I’m like a deep Kids in the Hall fan, and I went to see them at Massey Hall in Toronto when I was 13, and I it was like revelatory for me to see. They were like rock stars, everybody screaming the lyrics or the words and the punch lines. My mom took me, and I was obsessed, and I would go and wait at the stage door. He did a one-man show that year, maybe the next year. I waited at the stage door, and I ended up babysitting for him for years."

Beyond Martin's own personal satisfaction with sharing the set with such a titan of sketch comedy, they felt the moment was notable for their shared country of origin, Canada.

"So, it was very full-circle to get to to put him in the show, and we had a really good time. It’s definitely a weirdly niche Canadian comedy moment to see me beating the shit out of a Kid in the Hall. But he’s so brilliant, Mark, and he’s so perfect for something like this, because he can do that thing where he straddles drama and comedy, and the tension’s great. But also, when he says, 'I’m gonna get a milk, do you want a milk?' I love that."

Wayward is streaming on Netflix now.


Grant DeArmitt

Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.

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