'Bet' Canadian star Hunter Cardinal reflects on 'emotionally uncomfortable' finale of Netflix show
Based on the manga Kakegurui, the Netflix show Bet takes us to the prestigious boarding school, St. Dominic's, with a social hierarchy determined by gambling between the students. When Yumeko (Miku Martineau) shows up as a new transfer, she shakes up the school's status quo, motivated by a secret revenge plan.
Among the cast is Canadian actor Hunter Cardinal who plays Michael. Unlike his schoolmates, he doesn't gamble, but that's the foundation for what makes him one of the most intriguing characters in the series.
For Cardinal, who's had an extensive theatre career, performing on stages across Canada and in New York, he's excited that Bet is finally out on Netflix for the world to see.
"I'm mostly stoked because I think so often you can see a show and just see a person, but what you don't get to see is all of the communities of support that helped create that person, create that opportunity for that person to be there, and you have this beautiful web of relationships, of goodwill, of support," Cardinal told Yahoo Canada. "And I'm just so excited that the show's out so that we can start celebrating all the people that got us here, all the communities that we get to represent, and also the new community that we're building around this show."
Cardinal highlighted that it was "intriguing" to navigate Michael's mystery in Bet, but identified that a core element of developing the character was establishing what brooding actually is.
"I had to really think about what the heck brooding means," Cardinal said. "And I remember we had this really awesome card bootcamp where we got to learn how to do card handling, cardistry is what I hear it's called, ... and my character doesn't gamble at all. Again, he's brooding in the corner."
"I was talking with Calvin Tong, one of the cardists that we got to work with, and I was like, OK so if you were trying to deconstruct and watch another card trick that someone was doing, ... you're kind of looking at how this person's doing it, what are you looking for?"
"He took me in the room and he broke down how he would look for how people are misdirecting, how they're reading social cues, how they're understanding the social dynamics within that group. ... That became this really interesting window into Mike's survival in a world filled with people trying to devour one another. So for me I was like, oh my gosh Michael being on the outside, ... he's watching, and that was an incredible moment for me to then bring that into every scene. ... He's discovering. He's looking for things. He's listening for things. He has an idea of where that moment could go. And then oftentimes it doesn't go that way, and then we get to see that reaction."As we get to the end of the season, there's the big reveal that Michael's father Ray killed Yumeko's parents, with the Kakegurui Club responsible for their death. Ray also reveals that Yumeko's mother may still be alive. And then when Ray dies, that makes Michael the head of his father's criminal enterprise.
Reflecting on the final moments of the show, Cardinal described it as "emotionally uncomfortable."
"What I mean by that is, I feel like Mike's journey was really interesting, where, probably when he was younger, who's to say, I don't know, there was a decision made where he drew a line in the sand of this is right and this is wrong," Cardinal said. "And I feel like what we get to see, and the journey I went on as the audience member, getting to play Mike, was how that sort of forced him ... into a way of looking at the world where you can't un-see how often the world, the people around, sometimes end up on the side of wrong."
"And then there's only so much you can do in some cases. Sometimes you just have to watch it happen. Sometimes you can try to help, sometimes it's actually worth risking upsetting someone, letting them hate you, if you love and care for them enough. But at the end of the day, I think what's interesting in that moment is we're starting to see someone realize that idea of one's own goodness might have been a gamble in the first place."
But in order to find all these layers in the story, the collaboration with the show's creator, Canadian Simon Barry, was critical.
"Simon was so open, was so aware of the precious process we were creating together, and it really ... set the tone beautifully for us to make offers, to show up as we are, sometimes make an offer that didn't work, because again, we're pursuing something ... that is a little bit greater than what we think we can do," Cardinal said. "But it's about that journey and that process."
"I remember one day, I was just kind of taking in the moment, and I looked over and Simon had the same grin as a kid, just so thrilled."
Now that Cardinal has cracked the Netflix audience, it all connects back to his youth, where spending time with his late grandmother from New York, watching Whose Line Is It Anyway?, sparked an interest in acting.
"I remember just feeling a sense of being alive, of seeing how the performers were alive, how the audiences were alive, how everyone was connected," he recalled.
"I just remember hearing my grandma's laugh in that Long Island accent. ... And so for me, I feel like acting ... has always been that pursuit of that form of connection."
But it also still feels like a significant accomplishment when a Canadian talent can be seen on a platform with such a massive, global scope, but Cardinal celebrated the universality of stories told by Canadians.
"We know that our stories, despite them being sometimes hyper-specific to Canada, have this incredible universality to it, and it is something that we can cherish and celebrate, because we also know that, at the end of the day, ... our stories are so much more than the words and the people performing them," he said. "They're relationships to the ideas that we love the most, to the communities that we love the most."
"And so for me, it's an incredible opportunity to just continue a long tradition that we've always known, and that is us, and it's great."
Now that he has Bet under his belt, Cardinal admitted that he's caught the love of working on camera.
"Overall though, [I'm] fascinated by complex and deep characters, the ones that exist between labels," he said. "And I'm particularly interested in the stories, as well, that are sort of carving new paths for themselves, that are creating and telling narratives that need to be told."
"And I'm also really excited to find the crews and the creative partners that understand that. Because, again, this was such an incredible process, where it was just a reminder of why I love doing this work."
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