When Schitt’s Creek’s won numerous awards at the 2020 Emmys last month, Canada celebrated with them.
But Guelph has another reason to celebrate the historic win: the show’s producer and production manager for the final Emmy-winning season was a Guelphite who won an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series.
“It’s pretty special. It’s pretty surreal at the same moment. You never expect these things but having it happen is a blessing,” said Kosta Orfanidis.
He joined the crew as producer and production manager in season five where his responsibilities included finance, employment, budget, locations and contracts.
Schitt's sixth season broke the record for receiving 15 Emmy nominations, the highest ever for a comedy series in its final season. It was also the first time in history that a comedy show won nine Emmys for a single season and the first comedy show to win all four acting categories: outstanding lead actor, outstanding lead actress, outstanding supporting actor and outstanding supporting actress.
To celebrate the win during the pandemic, some of the cast and crew gathered at an event centre in Toronto to celebrate.
“It was a lot of champagne, a lot of jumping, a lot of socially distanced celebration with one another,” said Orfanidis.
“I don’t know if it translated well to TV but in that room, we were literally all still celebrating each prior win,” he said. “The ADs were asking us to sit back in our chairs but we were all just so overjoyed. It was amazing.”
Reflecting back to his humble beginnings, Orfanidis recalls the times he would play in the streets of Guelph as a child.
Born to an immigrant Greek family, Orfanidis family moved to Guelph from Toronto at the age of eight in 1988.
“It was really a different experience for me having moved from Toronto,” said Orfanidis.
“The street was where we lived, we owned the neighbourhood as children, we were rollerblading and bicycling and playing road hockey,” he remembers of his time living near the University of Guelph.
“It was a great childhood. I couldn’t imagine a better place to grow up.”
His family still lives here.
When it comes to film, Orfanidis said it's a career he ‘fell into.’
He studied economics at university, then went into banking, which didn't work for him "interest wise.”
So he took a break, toured Europe and came back to complete a degree in creative advertising in Seneca College, but nothing worked out.
“I ultimately was coerced by a friend who was producing commercials to come out and be a production assistant with him one day,” said Orfanidis who was then enamoured with film and all its different moving pieces.
Twelve years later, he has worked as a production manager on the shows Hannibal, Star Trek: Discovery, 12 Monkeys and then made history with the rest of the Schitt’s Creek team this year.
Reflecting back to the time he spent on the show, he said one of his favourite parts of the show was how familiar the cast and crew were with one another other.
“It was really like that behind the scenes as well. Dan, Eugene, Catherine, Annie, everyone was just so wonderful as human beings and to work with,” said Orfanidis.
“It really became a situation of familiarity and a sort of comfort.”
He said there was a feeling of involvement and collaboration on set even between people who weren't directly working with each other.
“And that’s truly what makes filmmaking a special art form is that its the last collaborative environment where every opinion matters and everyone’s opinion is valued and asked to be taken,” said Orfanidis.
Not to take away from any of those other successful shows, Orfanidis said the writing of Schitt’s Creek really stood out as “next level.”
“It translates from the page to the production almost seamlessly. Watching it from the development stage and sort of an outline and then develop into a script,” said Orfanidis.
“My favourite episodes were the ones that I knew were the ones that were the most challenging to produce such as the cabaret episode in Season 5 and the finale in Season 6.”
“It was a really big production to get us there. It was months of rehearsal, lots of planning, lots of consulting, lots of choreography,” said Orfanidis as he remembers the days on set with challenges such as running out of daylight to film in and being stuck in a man-made rain machine.
It’s no surprise that the last episode brought an array of emotions on set.
“Everyone was crying in all sorts of different points, going for makeup resets for everyone to gather themselves,” said Orfanidis.
“It’s a strange feeling when you’re crying out of sadness and joy at the same time.
“Those are the moments that stick out and that’s why I find those to be my favourite sort of moments within the show.”
Being the first Canadian Show to win this many Emmys, Orfanidis said it’s nice to get that recognition from our southern counterparts.
“It's rare,” said Orfanidis, “And again, a lot of that success is attributed to Dan and Eugene and the rest of our cast having that vision to make it something more valuable than what has been done in the past with the Canadian market.
