Chris Jacot Chats About ‘Slasher’

Tonight is the Canadian premiere of Slasher on Super Channel, and we’re continuing to bring you coverage from our visit to their set last summer.

Our next interview is with Chris Jacot. He plays Robin on Slasher, a small-town real estate agent with a big city mentality that becomes best friends with Sarah Bennett when she returns to Waterbury.

Read our conversation below, and be sure to check out our other Slasher coverage so far!

What are you able to share about your character on Slasher and his role in the story?

I play a character named Robin Turner. Me and my husband have moved to this small town of Waterbury, in a financial effort and also a lifestyle effort. My husband is into property selling, so he buys up a lot of the town. We end up living in a fairly large house. We’re almost urbanizing this small town in a way. I then become the local real estate agent, and that’s how I meet Sarah. I pair her up with the gallery that she comes to the town to open, and become her best friend. That’s as far as I can kind of go in terms of where my character ends up. We do get very close, and spend a lot of time together, just the two of us, figuring out who done it.

Since he didn’t grow up in Waterbury, does that mean he doesn’t have some of the preconceived ideas about Sarah that the locals do?

He’s a bit of a fanboy about her, the minute he sees her. She’s in the papers. She’s a bit of an urban legend in the town. Robin has a flair for the dramatic anyway, so this is the kind of celebrity that comes into Waterbury — the sole survivor of The Executioner’s bloody wrath, which I keep pointing out to her when I first meet her. It’s a little bit of an awkward meeting, because I do fanboy out on her.

How does Waterbury see Robin, both with his role in town and now his friendship with Sara? Is he perceived as a threat?

Robin and Justin own a lot of the town, and are obviously profiting from it. They could and may have potentially made enemies due to monopolizing of properties. As much as I think we’re like your friendly gay neighbours, there’s definitely going to be a part of the town that resents us for either kicking them off their property or raising their lease. We’re big community supporters, we throw a lot of parties, we’re generally liked by everyone, but there’s definitely an underbelly. There’s also just the fact that we’re gay, and we are in a small town, which can generate a lot of ignorance.

It sounds like an interesting layer to this story.

It’s really cool. Robin always has Miami Beach colors on, like he’s in denial that he’s actually in a northern Ontario town. As much as he has some facades that protect him from getting too emotionally involved with the situation — whatever his defenses might be in order to get through what it is for a very out, gay man to live in a small town — it’s like he made the decision that he was going to do it fabulously. But it’s not as campy a role as I think you generally see. What I really love — what really attracted me to this character — is having all these dramatic qualities is really a surface element to what we get into throughout the series, where we really start to see a lot of emotional depth in him. Some very interesting arcs happen with him. He’s not your quintessential gay best friend. He actually has a very clear directive throughout the show.

Does becoming Sarah’s best friend put Robin in a precarious position? Does he hesitate at all with that friendship because he could end up in danger?

There are definitely a couple of run-ins that make Robin ask, “Am I next?” Whether he is or not — I’m not going to say — hanging out with Sarah Bennett is probably a bad idea, which is why I think that their relationship is so cool. I don’t think he cares. He’s really into solving this. The whole town naturally gets caught up in it. When you’re in a small town, and with the kind of drama that’s going on, it’s like ten Dateline episodes all smooshed into one. It’s so severe that the stakes are always so high. Everyone’s in life or death mode. The option to just flee town isn’t really there, because it’s happening so fast.

The pace of this show is really interesting, too. Just as you start to get an idea that, “Maybe I should get the hell out of here,” you can’t. Something else falls on top of your plate. It’s been a wonderful show to work on, and has really great writing, and fantastic actors. I’ve been really fortunate.

Do you enjoy this format of having a self-contained story play out over eight episodes, and that there is a resolution at the end?

Absolutely. Do you know why? I’m a binge watcher. I’m the guy that will anticipate Orange Is the New Black, and then just sit there one Sunday afternoon and just go right through it. I don’t mind an eight-hour movie, which is essentially what this will be. I dig that. The arc that it allows you to have, you don’t even get that in a play. On top of it, this is horror, and the stakes are so much higher than they would be on your average eight episode run.

Photo Courtesy of Chiller

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