VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Michelle Mylett & Dylan Playfair On The End Of ‘Letterkenny,’ Hope For Canadian TV Industry

In conversation with uInterview founder Erik Meers, Letterkenny actors Michelle Mylett and Dylan Playfair reflected on the Canadian show’s final season.

Letterkenny is focused on a rural community in Ontario, where residents are primarily descendants of Irish immigrants who sought refuge from the devastating Great Famine. Cliques exist throughout the community, from Hicks to Skids to Hockey Players. Nearly every episode begins with a textual introduction that sets the stage with, “There are 5000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems.”

When asked for favorite on and off-screen moments, Mylett shared, “When we did the Mother Hutchins scene around the dining room table… it’s just so deeply unsettling and crass, and we were laughing so hard, and the crew was laughing, it was just one of those ones where you’re like, ‘Oh this might piss some people off but it’s definitely going to make an impact one way or another.’”

Mylett also reminisced about the cast’s parties off-camera, and a day they spent together at a lake house in the final season.

Playfair explained that of many great scenes, his favorite on-camera moment happened in the final season. “There were these two wonderful cast members who, in the early seasons were background performers, and then over time became more and more featured, and in the last season he proposed to her on camera at the end of a long take… that was a really cool behind the scenes moment for me that was kinda in front of the camera.”

Playfair also echoed Mylett’s praise for the cast parties, “The amount of fun we had together partying, was almost endless, right on the border of—if it wasn’t Letterkenny, it might have been too much, but since it was such a silly show we were allowed to go pretty haywire. And haywire we went.”

He added, “We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs.”

Mylett explained that she feels Canada is very regularly reduced to self-deprecating stereotypes and she thinks that the diverse range of characters across the show paints a much more realistic portrait of Canadians.

Playfair said he hoped that the show would serve as an example of what Canadian TV can be. “So many of our funny people…have to leave Canada because the infrastructure doesn’t exist here. And I hope that, you know, after hit after hit, there’s an infrastructure above us that starts investing in local talent and giving them the opportunity to do what Letterkenny did, which was make this great stuff at home.”

Letterkenny spanned a total of 74 episodes, with seven special episodes, five successful live tours, accolades from the Canadian Screen Awards and a spinoff series, Shoresy.