Netflix’s ‘Virgin River’ Season 4 Star Kai Bradbury Teases Mystery Character and Celebrates Filming in Canada
After Kai Bradbury’s dramatic introduction as Doc Mullins’ (Tim Matheson) long-lost grandson, Denny, in Season 4 of Virgin River on Netflix the Canadian actor further complicates relationships in the remote northern California town (actually filmed in British Columbia).
“When we meet Denny, we definitely shaped him in an ambiguous way,” Bradbury teased. Yahoo Canada. “We want to ride this plot twist, and kind of figure out what he’s really doing, so we’ve got some really fun red herrings, rumors going around about him.”
“I love ending his arc for the season with a nice emotional payoff.”
The “emotional pay-off” at the end of the season is certainly accurate but without spoiling the finale, we will say that everything Virgin River fans who like to see the romance of Ricky and Lizzie (played by Grayson Maxwell Gurnsey and Sarah Dugdale), may not like Denny’s presence in Virgin River, creating a classic love triangle while Lizzie is still mad at Ricky for not not tell him to join the Marines.
Doc is relatively quick to welcome the grandson he didn’t know he had, but just like the scheme of this romantic drama, no one is as it seems in Virgin River. Eventually moving in with Doc and Hope (Annette O’Toole), while Hope recovers from her traumatic brain injury, much of season 4 of the series tries to figure out if Denny is well-meaning in his trip to Virgin River, or if he has something more deceptive and sinister planned.
For Bradbury, what really got the actor excited about playing Denny was working closely with movie legends, especially Tim Matheson and Annette O’Toole.
“Tim Matheson and Annette O’Toole are some of the projects I saw as a kid, as an adult they were in shows and movies that I didn’t even realize I had them in seen, until I got to work with them,” Bradbury said.
“It’s so much fun to play. With their experience, everything seems so simple and watching them is a bit like learning by osmosis, you pick up on their behavior and the way they behave, and you are immediately inspired.
“It’s like a giant Explore BC ad”
Virgin River is just one of many shows Netflix has filmed in Canada, British Columbia specifically, filmed around Vancouver, Snug Cove, Squamish, Burnaby and Port Coquitlam. For Kai Bradbury, he loves being able to put his garden on screen for the world to see.
“It’s such a gift to our local industry here and just a real pleasure to film in these incredibly beautiful parts of my hometown really, I mean, it’s like a giant Explore BC ad, and I hope a lot people will come and get our Virgin River so they can see it for themselves,” Bradbury said.
“I’m always up for cracking a joke about Canada or giving advice on what’s there to visiting Americans.”
Whereas Virgin River has finished filming four seasons of the show in Canada, there are still a few things that seem to be confusing Americans. As Bradbury identified, one of these confusions is wearing shorts in the winter.
“Me, Tim and Annette were talking… why do we wear shorts in the winter, despite the weather, it’s still up for debate,” Bradbury said.
“I’ve been known to wear shorts in the winter…The winter look with shorts also includes big jackets and touques.”
“Dream Big”
The next step in his career, we can see Kai Bradbury in the next Netflix series The imperfect, which the actor describes as a “coming of age action thriller”. While the actor has had plenty of success in TV and streaming shows, he hopes to venture into the feature film space.
Also, with his love of acting ever since he joined his improv troupe in high school, Bradbury hopes to do more comedy in the future.
“I really want to do feature films, I’ve had the chance to do a lot of things on television and streaming, which is great, but there’s something about telling a contained story, almost short, really, because when you’re doing TV, it’s almost longer than a movie in a lot of ways,” Bradbury said.
“So I’m hungry to do feature films and comedy. I find that in Vancouver, as many shows as we get, we don’t often get as many comedies here.
As the actor’s career continues to take off, he has simple advice for aspiring Canadian actors: “dream big.”
“When I was a teenager, my mom gave me this little sign that said ‘dream big’ and I always keep it by my bed because at the end of the day, it’s really yourself that keeps you from everything,” Bradbury said.
Comments are closed.