There’s been an extremely positive response to North of North, Netflix’s new Indigenous comedy about a young Inuk mother who sets out to build a new life for herself after publicly ending her marriage. Not only does the eight-episode series have a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it has also been renewed for a second season. Hollywood veteran Mary Lynn Rajskub, who plays the Ice Cove community center director Helen, recently stopped by DECIDER’s studio to talk about the series’ success.
According to Rajskub — who’s known for roles on 24 and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia — North of North was pitched to her “very delicately,” with her reps warning that there’s no Target and no Starbucks in the small Canadian town of Iqaluit, Nunavut where they filmed the show. Despite knowing “absolutely nothing” about the area before she booked the gig, the actress said she’s now “ready” to go back for Season 2.
“I was a little nervous when I landed, just taking a breath in, wondering if my insides were freezing as I was breathing,” she told DECIDER. “But it turns out I was OK. You do adapt and it was a very magical and meaningful experience and I feel really lucky to have gotten to do it.”
While North of North has been widely praised for shedding a different light on Indigenous communities, there was one plot point that some viewers still found disturbing. At the end of Episode 1, Siaja (Anna Lambe) drunkenly makes out with the new, older man in town only to learn that he’s her long-lost biological father, making for one shocking plot twist.
“Yeah, it’s wrong. But also, you could see it happening,” Rajskub said in response to critics. “It’s set up very well to be like, ‘Oh, new guy in town, she’s kind of melting down, she’s been drinking, she’s sort of impaired and making bad choices and there’s the new guy.’ End of story. She didn’t know it was her dad.”
When DECIDER caught up with Rajskub, she also talked about her character Helen (and why she’s not your typical villain), why she would consider herself “part Karen,” and what direction she’d like to see the characters in Ice Cove go in Season 2. Check out the full interview below.
DECIDER: North of North is just getting glowing reviews. You must be so proud of it.
MARY LYNN RAJSKUB: I’m so proud of it. I’m proud to be a part of it. It’s one of those things that I didn’t think would happen, that you hope for – a show that has meaning and is the beginning of a legacy for Indigenous people and I get to be the white lady.
And you do it so well!
Thank you so much. I asked my son if he thought I could play a Karen type. He’s like, “Yes.” I said, “You don’t have to answer that quickly. You could take a moment and think it over.” But it turns out he could picture me as it.
Well, you were amazing in the show. Everyone was amazing. Anna was even just nominated for a Gotham Award.
I’m so proud of her. Well-deserved. She is just a gem. I mean, you hear this all the time from actors, like, “Best crew, we’re so close.” But, I mean, we were in the Arctic together.
You were trapped up north together!
We were trapped. I like to call it – what’s the opposite of trapped? Bonding. Bonding togetherness voluntarily for work. Yeah, it was fantastic. There’s not a lot of places to go and you end up in the same three bars or restaurants after work catching up with each other. It was great. We played radio bingo. Like, real FM radio bingo.
That sounds like so much fun! Your career has spanned decades so I’m curious as to how this show was pitched to you and what made you decide to sign on?
It was pitched to me very delicately. I got a call from both of my reps at the same time saying, “Would you even consider going here? We just want to make it clear. It’s a very small town. There’s no Target. There’s no Starbucks.” I was like, “Who do you think I am? I was made to go here. I play comedy clubs all over the United States. I can eat out of a vending machine. I can walk across the freeway to a Chili’s and get a fried chicken salad.” But yeah, the Arctic was nothing like I thought it was going to be. I was a little nervous when I landed, just taking a breath in, wondering if my insides were freezing as I was breathing. But it turns out I was OK. And you do adapt and it was a very magical and meaningful experience and I feel really lucky to have gotten to do it. I’m ready for Season 2.
How much did you know about Iqaluit before you flew there for filming? What did you think of it once you were there?
Absolutely nothing. It’s very funny now, for some reason, I’ll just say to people, “Oh, I’m working in the Arctic.” And then I’ll see them a little while later and they’re like, “How’s your job in Alaska?” It’s not Alaska. It’s Iqaluit in the territory of Nunavut, all right? Which I didn’t know anything about, but now I’m an expert and I will be offended if you call it anywhere other than it is. Yeah, it was a place I didn’t know that I wanted to go and now, you know, maybe I’ll move there.
Being in such a small town, I imagine you were able to spend a lot of time with the cast outside of filming. What kind of things would you guys do on your days off?
We did everything in the same hotel, which would turn into a nightclub after 9 p.m. So you’d try to eat your dinner before 9p.m. because then the lights would change and it would just be a bumping nightclub. We could also go outside our hotel and see the Northern Lights, which was fantastic. I did go on a dog sled ride towards the end, which is a real thing that happens there. It’s touristy for there but people really do have dog teams. I don’t know what the dog teams actually do other than take people around.
Was it scary?
No, it was really, really fun. But the farther you go out, you’re on the Arctic Ocean, which was very weird to step off and realize you’re standing on the ocean. And the farther we went with the dog team, which I’m sure to them was not very far, but it’s a little nerve wracking because there’s just a vast nothingness. And sometimes the horizonline blends into the sky, and it’s pretty wild. We would have bonfires as well … I go to bonfire raves.
I want to talk about your character Helen. She’s the leader of the Ice Cove community center but she’s also a little bit of a Karen, which adds a lot of humor to her character. How much fun did you have leaning into that personality trait? And were you inspired by any real-life Karens?
I mean, I cringe when I see – I also enjoy seeing white women melt down on the internet, whether it’s on an airplane or in a park. That’s something that I look out for and I like to see how much I could be like that and I’d like to think not at all. But, you know, I am part Karen. Let’s just call it what it is. I will ask for the manager and, obviously, I’m not Inuit or from the Arctic. So, yeah, I relate to myself in that respect. And I love that they wrote this character, not just black and white. She’s got a lot of levels. So she’s someone that’s deeply invested in the people in Ice Cove and she also wants to leave her legacy of making it a better place and sometimes she gets that wrong. No matter how many years she’s been there, my character also has a husband who’s native to there, so she’s staked her claim there. But she doesn’t really get it sometimes.
But I love that about her – that she’s never the villain. She just gets it wrong without meaning to sometimes. And sometimes her ego gets the best of her where she wants to show her legacy and that she’s doing well and that she’s in charge. So I think that’s also relatable. It doesn’t become this overly characterized thing like you would see on the internet. It doesn’t become this reactive thing, it becomes a real person so you can see all these different ways that she might get it wrong, or that she might get it right, and how much she really does care. Wow, that’s kind of a beautiful thing, because you get to see her in her life. And hopefully, we’re catching her before she pops off in a bad way. You know what I mean? We see her working it out with Anna’s character, who it’s sort of like she’s the gatekeeper, but then in the later episodes, she needs her. So they have this interesting working relationship with each other.
Helen and Siaja kind of have this push and pull relationship. What was it like working with Anna Lambe? Since you’ve been in the industry for so long, did you give her any advice?
I really felt for her in those early days because it’s really hard to, especially with the pilot where everything’s being established. The scripts were there, the vision was there, but I think it was like the first few days where we’re all figuring it out and we don’t know the tone of it. And it is a comedy, but there are so many emotional parts and there’s so many things that are deeper. But then moments that are played for silly. So, I was watching her navigate that because she carries the whole show. But then other than that, I just tried to be there for her and be able to be loose for myself. Because I also was trying to find the character and find that line of what we could make humorous, what we can make real, and how we could find the balance. And there were many times where I just tried to also make her laugh, like really hard. There’s probably a good 15 minutes of me saying probably stuff that’s not appropriate. And I don’t even think I was on camera, but I was just trying to break her and make her laugh, which I did. So that was the most important thing.
Speaking of Siaja, she had a pretty crazy start to the series when she accidentally made out with her long-lost biological father. What was your reaction to reading that in the script?
That’s funny that you bring that up because I just read that article that was like, “They tried to play it off as cringe, but that was wrong.” Yeah, it’s wrong. But also, you could see it happening. They played it like you could see it happening. There’s a hot guy, a hot older man who’s new to town. And I think that is reflective of it’s a small town, everybody knows each other and they use that in other parts of the show where one of the characters is like, “He’s my cousin,” like, about Ting. And so it’s set up very well to be like, “Oh, new guy in town, she’s kind of melting down. She’s been drinking, she’s sort of impaired and making bad choices and there’s the new guy.” End of story. She didn’t know it was her dad.
My mouth dropped when that happened. I immediately went to the next episode.
Same, my mouth dropped and I knew it was coming. Yeah, it’s really shocking, but I think in the best possible way.
What do you hope for Helen, Siaja, and the rest of Ice Cove in Season 2?
For me, the seeds are already there with Helen and Siaja. I love how, I mean I guess we’re kind of like spoilsies with this, but we’ve been kind of talking not so specifically. But in the end of the season, it shows how much Helen is sort of forced to respect Siaja and that she needs her. Because Siaja holds the heart and soul and is very articulate about where she comes from. And that’s something that is important to Helen. But she’s too impatient to actually speak from the heart about it. She’s too caught up in all of her bureaucracy and being Helen and having her wine shipped up there. So, you know, I’m looking for just … I don’t think it will be resolved. I think it’ll be more hijinks, more issues with Helen and Siaja both. Siaja learning her own power and Helen getting sort of put in her place.
Do you have any other projects in the works? I know you just released your new YouTube standup special Road Gig!
I’m really proud of this stand-up special because I did it unconventionally. It was self-produced, self-financed, and I used one of my actual dates on the road. So, when the audience got there, they didn’t know that I was filming a special. And my manager, who works with stand-up a lot, really knows the ins and outs. And she was saying, “I’m going to tell the waitstaff to like duck out of the camera.” And I was like, “You know what? Let’s have them do what they do, take people’s orders.” And I think a good half of the audience may not have even been there to see me, which was nerve wracking. Because when you plan for a special, you sort of want everything to go right. But I had been on the road for a while so I really had the chance to work with what was happening in the moment. And there were a lot of conversations with the audience that were not on topic, not the material that I was going for, but it made it really exciting and fun because I was interacting with the audience. And I had one take. It was one show, one take. And it’s a lot of great stuff about just my life, being a mom, being a single powerful woman in the world. So yeah, I’m really proud of it.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
North of North is currently streaming on Netflix.
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