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When Tyler Labine was starting to get some success as a young actor in Canada his parents gave him some blunt advice: "There's nothing special about what you do."
"Thankfully my parents were very savvy," says Labine, whose latest series, "Sons of Tucson," premieres Thursday at 9:30 ET on Global and can also be seen Sunday on Fox.
Labine grew up in Brampton, Ont., moved with his family to Vancouver during his teenage years and started acting when he was nine. While his parents encouraged his acting ambitions, they made the distinction between what he did and who he was.
"You're a special person, but there's nothing special about what you do," he remembers them telling him. Basically, the message was, "don't ever get a big head about what you do."
Now 31, Labine has had a few years in L.A. to get some perspective on that advice. He's been close to having that breakout U.S. hit a few times over the years but still no cigar. "Reaper," the CW series in which he played slacker pal "Sock" Wysocki, was a cult favourite but barely limped into a second season. The ABC sci-fi series "Invasion" also failed to land with audiences.
Those setbacks take a toll, "especially when you pour your heart into something and they toss it on the floor," he said at the "Sons of Tucson" press launch earlier this year in Los Angeles. What he has come to accept is that, "even though a show fails, it doesn't necessarily mean I've failed."
Fortunately, Labine's on-screen easy-going, dude-next-door charm continues to connect with casting directors and network programmers. When the creators of "Sons of Tucson" were looking for an actor to play Ron Snuffkin, a misfit, surrogate dad to three mischievous siblings, they saw Labine as a perfect fit.
"The character of Ron was already in existence, and we happened to meet Tyler at just the right time," says co-creator Tommy Dewey. Executive producer/director Todd Holland says Labine didn't even have to read for the part. "We met Tyler and loved him, and he was about to do something else, and we convinced him to come back to us."
Benjamin Stockham, Frank Dolce and Matthew Levy play the three young brothers who need someone to pose as their dad at teacher-parent meetings and such while their real dad is in prison. Snuffkin, a wayward schemer who can barely hold on to his job at a sporting goods store, agrees to act as their pseudo parent in exchange for a room in the house their real dad left them and cash.
Actors are warned not to work with children or dogs but Labine says he's surrounded by both in the series and enjoying every minute.
"I wouldn't trade it for the world, it's one of the most amazing learning experiences I've ever had in my life," he says.
"You get reminded every once in a while what it is to be an actor from watching (the young co-stars). They don't get too heavy about it, they just do it. I'm still in my head about some scene, fussing over the reading of a line, they just throw it all out the window."
Labine says he may look care-free on screen, but that is part of a carefully cultivated persona.
"I'm one of the most self-deprecating actors you'll ever meet. I'm very hard on myself. I'll go back in my trailer and smack myself on the head."
Labine wasn't much older than the child actors on "Tucson" when he landed his first break in television, on the Vancouver-produced YTV series "Breaker High" (1997-98). Labine co-starred on that high school series set on a cruise ship with another young Canadian bound for stardom, Ryan Gosling ("The Notebook"). Working on the series "changed a lot about how I perceived acting as an actual viable career," he says.
"When I finished that show, I thought, you know what, this is actually something that could be done if I applied the right energy."
He describes "Breaker High" as "acting boot camp." The cast and crew cranked out a half hour episode every three days, doing table reads for the next show in the middle of the one they were still shooting.
His parents' advice that it was who you are, not what you do, helped him get past the crash and burn experience that was his first U.S. network experience. In 2002, Labine played best friend to another Canadian, James Bulliard, in a series where the main character could go back in time and do-over previous mistakes. It sounds like the current CBC series "Being Erica" but it was called "That Was Then." It lasted two episodes.
"That was a pretty big thing my life," says Labine, looking back at the ABC series and the lavish launch party held in Pasadena, Calif.
Labine and Bulliard were surrounded by ABC stars at the time like Drew Carey, John Ritter and Lara Flynn Boyle. The two young Canadians had barely moved down to L.A. before the series was abruptly cancelled.
That tip to not get a big head about a showbiz career was certainly driven home.
"What I learned is that it's all about the work ethic and how you treat other people," says Labine. "It's a great Canadian attribute, I think. If you just keep doing the work, hopefully the product will eventually be something worthwhile."
