Make it or break it season 1 cast12/9/2023 This made the episode in which her character Paige is sexually assaulted by Dean, a soccer player from a rival school, all the more notable. In 2002, “consent was not a conversation we were having,” says Lauren Collins. From that point on, I was in awe of his talent.” Stacey Farber, who made her debut later in the season, remembers watching the episode at home and being “completely blown away by his performance.” She had gone to school with Epstein - “We were co-valedictorians at graduation, oddly enough,” she says - and this was “the first time I saw someone in my life - a friend - create something that affected me emotionally. The episodes were directed by Bruce McDonald, a cult Canadian filmmaker, who, Jake Epstein says, “in between takes would blast Led Zeppelin to get us in the mood.” The two-part introduction felt like a showcase for the young actor, who says the scenes of Craig being beaten up by his dad “were scary and realistic. One of the first things fans learn about Craig is that he’s being abused by his surgeon father, played by the Headstones lead singer and Yellowstone sheriff Hugh Dillon. “When Doves Cry” (Season 2, Episodes 1 & 2) “Whenever the crew laughed,” he says, “it was always a good sign.” The 13-year-olds didn’t know what ecstasy was, but onscreen, it plays like an absurdist comedy routine. But looking back today, he can appreciate how funny he and Cooley were together. “I felt like I carried a lot of weird teenager feelings about going through puberty on national television as ‘the nerd,’” Goldsbie says. (In actuality, they’re on aspirin.) Now, he thinks they’re funny, but it took awhile for him to get there. Yorke (Ryan Cooley) think they’re on ecstasy. Yes, Jake Goldsbie has seen the memes in which his character Toby Isaacs and his buddy J.T. “Jagged Little Pill” (Season 1, Episode 15) No surprise, more than a few of them really go there. In celebration of Degrassi: The Next Generation’s 20th anniversary, ten of the original cast members shared their favorite episodes. “A binge of Degrassi is like a therapy session,” says Andrea Lewis, who played Hazel Aden. (Though it’s unlikely any fans predicted his musical success based on Jimmy Brooks’s rhymes.) Or that the show has a high meme-ability rating see: “ New year, new look, new Paige.” The truth is, while things change, the more teens stay the same, which makes Degrassi worth revisiting, whether you’re a teenager now or were a few decades ago. It doesn’t hurt that Drake, then known as Aubrey Graham, got his start in those hallowed halls. Those bona fides are why generations of young adults continue to revisit The Next Generation as both nostalgic entertainment and educational tool. “We captured what it feels like to be figuring things out at 14 or 15.” They were basically unintentional method actors, experiencing all the drama of adolescence in real time. Yet it works because “that vulnerability was real,” she writes over email. They never did, which at the time “was so embarrassing,” but admits now, “it was what teenagers really deal with.” Ellie Nash herself, Stacey Farber, agrees that their extreme naïveté should have been cringeworthy. “We would beg the makeup people to cover our zits,” he says in a phone call from Toronto. Jake Epstein, who played Craig Manning, sometimes felt the show tried to be too real. Gavin “Spinner” Mason, points out: “If your school is anything like Degrassi, you should probably change schools.” That recently lived experience brought an authenticity to the series, though, as Shane Kippel, a.k.a. “When you’re 16 playing a 16-year-old, those things you’re going through on the show are still so fresh and embarrassing,” says the 49-year-old actor-director over the phone. Stefan Brogren, who played Archie “Snake” Simpson in four of the five major iterations of Degrassi, beginning with Degrassi: Junior High in 1987, believes this is why it stood out from the other teen soaps. Twenty years ago, Degrassi: The Next Generation tackled the realest of teen issues - sexual assault, bullying, teen pregnancy, self-harm, child abuse, gun violence - with a cast of actual teens. visited often enough but never took up residency quite like the Canadian teen drama created by Linda Schuyler and Kit Hood that has existed in various forms since 1979. A place where other teen shows of the early aughts - Dawson’s Creek, One Tree Hill, The O.C. Degrassi: The Next Generation goes there.
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