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Rockin' Rhonda: Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. All right, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.

Dave Graham: I'm Dave Graham with Peter McCully. Welcome to the Pulse Community Podcast and our BC Day long weekend special with our guest co-host, Greyston Holt of Salt Spring Island. We'll feature some BC musicians, and Greyston joins us. He has a long resume of movie and TV roles. You may have seen him as a security guard on Alcatraz, a cowboy singing with Deana Carter.

Peter McCully: He's been a werewolf. He's appeared in a movie with his wife, actor Christina Rosato, and this fall he plays Detective Hudson Riley in Neagley, the new Reacher spinoff on Prime Video. Thanks for taking time for us, Greyston. Good to see you again.

Greyston Holt: Good to see you. It's been a minute.

Peter McCully: A long minute. Yeah.

Greyston Holt: Many minutes.

Peter McCully: We've got lots to talk about. There might even be some connections we'll make. Perhaps we'll just call them one or two degrees of Greyston Holt.

Greyston Holt: Love it. Sounds good.

Peter McCully: Greyston, you grew up on Salt Spring Island, surrounded by nature, art, lots of music, and have moved back there after your years in Los Angeles and Vancouver so you and Cristina can raise your daughter.

When you left to pursue a career, did you think that one day you'd move back to the island?

Greyston Holt: I always knew Salt Spring was a special place, and certainly a special place to grow up and to raise children. You know, I feel like some people, when they grow up in a small town, they can't wait to get out and they never look back.

That was never me with Salt Spring. I always felt that I would be coming back. Even over the years, it took me almost 20 years to get back. Even in that time, I loved coming back for visits. It was always a very special place for me to reset and stay grounded. Yeah, so now being here with my own family and raising our little daughter here has been very rewarding and very full circle.

Dave Graham: Some folks may not be aware of the fact that you wanted to be a full-time musician before pursuing acting as a career.

Greyston Holt: Yeah, I certainly did. I think in my high school yearbook I had written in, you know, "What do you wanna be when you grow up?" And mine was, "I want a Marshall full stack and I wanna be touring the country."

For those who don't know, a Marshall full stack is a very large, very loud amp more suited for rock and roll and metal and all that stuff. But music's a tricky one, depending on other musicians and everyone's schedule and different creative personalities. But what I liked about acting was it felt more of a solo endeavor.

I could just do it on my own, put all of my effort into it, and not rely on other people to pursue it.

Peter McCully: But you did take a run at music. I believe you were in a Vancouver-based band called The Mary Belle?

Greyston Holt: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, my first band when I moved to Vancouver. I was really into hardcore post-punk metal, heavier, thrashy stuff, which I still am.

During that time period, the early 2000s to the mid-2000s, that was the scene in heavy music. And so, yeah, we had a band in that vein. We played Three-ish years. It was a lot of fun, but, you know, as much fun as I had, I always knew in the back of my mind that acting was my pursuit. We even had a chance, our band, we booked a cross Canada tour.

I was excited to do that, but I also at the same time booked my first series regular role shooting in Montreal on a series called Durham County. So for me, there was no question that I was gonna take that role. So unfortunately, I couldn't go on the tour, and they hired another guitarist to finish the tour.

Peter McCully: Did anybody in the band continue professionally in music?

Greyston Holt: Semi-professionally. Yeah, my buddy Evan, who I grew up with on Salt Spring, one of my best friends, he was our bass player. He always had such a knack for music and unique, interesting music at that. He has a really cool project right now called Midden, M-I-D-D-E-N.

He still plays bass, but he really took to old synthesizers, like the plug-in type. Super nerdy. Like, when I go to his basement and see his music setup, it is like Greek to me. I am analog guitar strings guy, and he's somehow mastered this world of crazy synths and keyboards, and the amount of wires he has hooked up is unreal.

He has a cool side project called Midden. Ambient synth music. Very cool.

Dave Graham: 54-40 was influenced by the punk scene when they got started, same as your band, and they're still going. They got a brand new album out this year, and lead singer Neil Osborne, like yourself, lives on one of the Gulf Islands.

He's a resident of Gabriola. We thought it'd be fun to have some BC-based music while we chat. So here is Fifty440 with their latest

Song: 54-40: Running for the fence

Peter McCully: That's 54-40 running for the fence, perhaps trying to run away from something scary like a werewolf. Greyston, that's my segue

Greyston Holt: The master of segues. Peter.

Peter McCully: For your role of Clayton Danvers in Bitten, the sci-fi series. How do you get yourself into a mindset of a role like that?

Greyston Holt: The audition process can be drawn out and lengthy, and I was at the point where they were gonna call me in for a chemistry read, which means meeting my potential co-star, who's also cast, and seeing if we have chemistry.

And so they flew me out to Toronto to do that, to meet with Laura Vandervoort, who was our lead. In preparation for that chemistry read, I thought, just to tap into the character a little bit more, I just knew running around naked in the forest would help me somehow.

Peter McCully: Okay.

Greyston Holt: So I took my friend's big dog, Nico, big black lab, and I took her for a hike in the forest, and I stripped down butt naked.

I was at one with this dog. We were running through the forest. I think the dog thought I was insane. I was howling, jumping over logs, and I don't know, I think I tapped into something very primal. I don't know if that's what booked me the job, but that was one small thing that I did to- to find the character.

Peter McCully: Where did this occur?

Greyston Holt: West Vancouver, in the mountains. Just above the upper levels highway. I went far off trail. I really made a point of not trying to scare somebody.

Peter McCully: Well, let's not call it six degrees, Greyston. Let's call it one or two degrees of Greyston Holt, was your appearance in Smallville, of course, and then one of the major cast members later on was Supergirl in Smallville, Laura Vandervoort.

You both show up together as major cast members in Bitten.

Greyston Holt: Yeah, it's funny how that worked out. I mean, at the time when I worked on Smallville, I think it was even before Laura was cast. But it's funny, with shows like that, Smallville and Supernatural, shows that have had very long runs, you're bound to get on one of these shows.

Supernatural did, I wanna say, 15 or 16 seasons. Smallville was up there, too, maybe 10 or 11, or 12. There's often a lot of crossover because the numbers are in your favor that you have worked with somebody else who was on that show.

Peter McCully: Now, you went from playing a werewolf on Bitten to appearing as a vampire on Supernatural.

I sense a pattern here.

Greyston Holt: I like to bite people?

Peter McCully: I don't know.

Greyston Holt: I have a penchant for the underworld.

Peter McCully: Perhaps that's it.

Greyston Holt: If you looked at all my band T-shirts, that would track. I'm still very much into heavy music, so there's a lot of dark imagery and skulls and all that stuff.

Peter McCully: You have a long list of IMDb credits, sci-fi shows, superhero worlds, without actually playing the superhero.

Is there a cape somewhere in your future, do you think?

Greyston Holt: Yeah, it's funny. It's particularly relevant when you're a Vancouver actor. A lot of these superhero-type shows have shot in Vancouver over the years. But no, I have yet to don the cape. But if I were to don a cape, I would love to be Super Eater with an appetite that was insatiable, and I could eat as much as I want forever.

And I'm stealing that from Cristina, my partner, because she wishes she had that superpower. And I think it's a great superpower, because sometimes you're full and you wanna keep eating, and the food is so good. So my superpower, my superhero would be Super Eater.

I guess this is why I never get cast as a superhero because I don't have a compelling pitch.

Dave Graham: Let's slip back to the music for a minute here, Greyston. Being a young musician growing up on Salt Spring Island and your dad being involved in music his whole life, did you have occasion to play with any of the island's musicians?

Greyston Holt: Many talented musicians over the years, absolutely. Like, I played in a band with my dad when I was in high school called DNA. Mostly covers, but just some fantastic players in that. A guy by the name of Greg Parker was our lead singer, lead guitarist. Dave Davies on bass, and then I was playing rhythm guitar, and I think I sang a couple songs.

I was really into a band called Sublime in high school. We did a couple Sublime songs that I sang, which was very fun. I've been on stage once randomly with Valdi. My dad was one of the owners of the local Windsor Plywood store here, and they have an annual Christmas party. And Valdi got up on stage and played some songs, and, yeah, I took that opportunity to also jump on stage and play alongside him just for fun.

But yeah, you know, we're, we're so blessed on Salt Spring to have so many wonderful world-class musicians that have decided to make this place home. As a kid, I remember Randy Bachman, he lived here. I went to middle school with his daughter. He would drop in randomly at the little Treehouse Cafe and do a set.

And Jamie Wollam lives here now. I think you've had him on your show. He's the current drummer for Tears for Fears. Bill Henderson, the lead singer from Chilliwack, lives here. Tom Hooper from the Grapes of wrath. Harry Manx, one of my favorite artists. Oh my God, so many. It's actually crazy what we have on the island.

Peter McCully: Do you remember what Valdy was playing when you were on stage by chance?

Greyston Holt: If you haven't seen him live, he's a real storyteller. He's got a great sense of humor. He always brings the energy. Because it was a Christmas party, he came up with this song on the spot called Christmas Wrap, and then he would shout out to the crowd, "Wrap it up.

Wrap it up." So it was a callback kind of thing, and it was very silly, and everybody was in the Christmas spirit after a few rum and eggnogs, so it hit hard.

Song: Valdy Rock and roll song

Dave Graham: That's Valdy as we chat with actor-musician Greyston Holt. Here's another connection for you, Greyston. You and Valdy's daughter have both been in many sci-fi shows shot over the years, mostly in Vancouver. Recently, Chelah Horsdal was in Star Trek: Discovery, my favorite franchise, and you are both award-winning actors.

Chelah just won a Leo for her role in Never Use Alone.

Greyston Holt: Fantastic. I don't know her personally, but I was aware that she was doing well, and I didn't realize she was in the new Star Trek, though, but that's fantastic. It's nice to see fellow Salt Springers doing well.

Peter McCully: I think she played the president of the Federation.

Greyston Holt: Holy smokes. Love it.

Peter McCully: And as you mentioned, your portrayal of Ray Prager Jr. in Durham County was awarded a Leo. That was a pretty gritty performance.

Greyston Holt: I played the son of a serial killer. It was pretty dark. It was my first sort of big-ish break, my first series regular role, and yeah, I was thrown into the deep end in terms of an amazing cast, amazing writing.

Up until that point, I had done small bit parts, and that was my first real role where I could sink my teeth into, and I learned a lot on that one 20 years ago.

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Dave Graham: We are back with Greyston Holt, our co-host on our BC Day special. Greyston plays Detective Hudson Riley in Neagley, the new Reacher spinoff on Prime Video, coming to a screen near you this fall. Greyston, how did this role come to you?

Greyston Holt: This role came to me like 99% of the roles I book, which was just an audition process. I got the audition from my agent next door in Vancouver, and also from my manager down in LA. I taped it here in our dining room and sent it out, thinking, as you typically do when you're auditioning for the lead in a, an Amazon or an NBC or a Netflix series, you're like, "Okay, we'll just put this out there and forget about it." You know, Canadians often have an uphill battle for whatever reason. I don't know if it's the smoke and mirrors, that we're just not in LA, and it just seems like a tougher thing to achieve when you're auditioning from Canada. But we got immediate good feedback, and then I sent another tape in.

They had a couple notes for me, just some tweaks on the scene, and then shortly after that, I found out that they would be flying me into Toronto to do a screen test with Maria, the lead. That went very well, and we waited about a week, which was very stressful. I told my agent, "Do not contact me. Do not text me unless it's news about this.

If I see your name pop up on my phone, it's gonna shoot my heart rate through the roof." Honestly, this has been my biggest role to date. It's a dream role. I love the character. I love the content. I'm pinching myself constantly, and it airs September 16th on Amazon, so it's right around the corner now, and I'm excited for the world to see it, and nervous, but, you know.

Peter McCully: Well, who is the character Hudson Riley? What's his backstory?

Greyston Holt: Hudson Riley, he's a Chicago detective, but he comes from a family of misfits and organized crime, was someone who wanted to take the right path and didn't like where his life was headed with his family, and decided to semi cut ties, become a police officer, and then a detective.

But in that creates a lot of great plot lines and conflict because they are still my family. But I try to remain true to the law and true to my job and my oath.

Peter McCully: And how physical does the role get?

Greyston Holt: It's very physical. In the spirit of Reacher, we're a spinoff of Reacher, action is important in this show.

It's constant. It's in every episode. We have shootouts, fight sequences, chases. So yes, my character is quite active.

Dave Graham: Did you have to learn any new skills to play the character?

Greyston Holt: Yeah. I've shot many guns over the years on set, but there's a difference between just playing some random bad guy who's shooting a gun and playing someone who should be trained with a weapon.

I had a bit of training with how to clear a room, how to load and reload, all that, how to properly hold the gun, obviously, all that kind of stuff. So that was a skill that I picked up.

Peter McCully: Did you watch the series Reacher before joining the spinoff, or did you read the series of books?

Greyston Holt: I didn't read the books, no, but I did watch the first couple of seasons of Reacher just to get an idea for the tone and also to get a vibe for Maria's character, Neagley, especially when I was going to do the screen test with her.

I was doing as much research as possible heading into that.

Peter McCully: That's Maria Sten. What's it like working alongside Maria?

Greyston Holt: She's fantastic. She's a true kick butt and take names badass. She's very intelligent. She's very proficient with firearms and combat. Yeah, it was fun working with her

Peter McCully: Her character jumps off the screen like someone you just don't want to get on the bad side of.

Greyston Holt: Yeah, it's like she'll punch first, ask questions later kind of thing, you know?

Peter McCully: Did you cross paths with Alan Ritchson on set?

Greyston Holt: Yeah, Alan came to set. He does a cameo in our show, so I got to meet him. He's fantastic. He made me feel small, which is hard to do because I'm 6'2" and I'm not jacked, but I'm well-built.

But he is 6'3" and huge. Super nice guy, and it was fun that he came out and did a cameo.

Peter McCully: I was chatting with your mom, Nancy, about the time that I learned that you would be in Neely. She was pretty excited, you could tell. All those trips to Vancouver on the ferry, all those auditions in the early days.

Greyston Holt: Yes.

It's starting to pay off, Mom. It took 20 years, but No, I've had a successful career, but this is certainly, the biggest yet.

Peter McCully: We were texting, I think, late 2024 perhaps, when you were heading to Toronto and Chicago to begin filming. We joked about how cold it was in Toronto and Chicago at that time when you were going to be filming.

Greyston Holt: Yeah, it sure was. It was very cold for this little island boy. They had a particularly cold winter, even by their standards. Man, shooting in that, I got the full spectrum because we started in February and then finished in June. It was way too freaking cold at the beginning, and then towards the end, we shot some in Chicago, and they were having a heatwave mid-May, and I'm running around in a freaking suit, leather jacket, holsters.

I was a mess. I'm already a sweaty guy. I run hot, but let me tell you, running around in 30 degrees with humidity in a suit and a leather jacket for two days straight, it was insane.

Peter McCully: Good way to lose weight.

Greyston Holt: It's water weight, that's for sure.

Peter McCully: You also mentioned that you were spending some time in Chicago and enjoying yourself at some blues clubs.

Greyston Holt: I've always loved the blues, and Chicago is one of the spots, man. Like, Chicago blues is legendary, and a buddy of mine's from there. I added on a few extra days and flew a buddy of mine down. We got to check out the city, and I certainly wanted to check out some blues clubs. But the best one we went to was called Kingston Mines, a legendary spot, and they had a really cool setup.

It's essentially two separate stages separated by a wall, and you can walk through to either stage, and then the bar is in the middle. They alternate sets, so there's two artists a night. Each band would play for 45 minutes or an hour, and then the next band would start up on the other side, so it was constant music.

And the level of players there, just your baseline of blues player is unreal. I'd never heard of these guys, and they were, like, the best blues players I'd ever seen. It was unreal. We had such a fun night there. But such a great city. Like, I've always wanted to go. I love the blues. I love food. I love skyscrapers, architecture, and Chicago had it all, so.

Dave Graham: We had a chance to chat with Ethan Askey as he and The Elevators have been touring Vancouver Island this summer. He was telling us he met Junior Wells at his club in Chicago, so we thought we'd just have to play one of those Ethan Askey tunes since we're talking about Chicago blues.

Song: Ethan Askey & The Elevators - Swing like that

Song: Brandon Isaac - Walkin with the Blues

Dave Graham: That's Ethan Eskey and The Elevators, and Brandon Isaac of the Cowichan Valley, Walking With the Blues. Brandon won Blues Album of the Year at the Junos this past year for that album.

Peter McCully: Since we're talking about one or two degrees of Greyston Holt as part of Smallville, you and Alan Ritchson, Reacher, both passed through Smallville early in your careers.

He was Aquaman. You played Tobias Rice, and nearly 20 years later, you're both showing up on Neely.

Greyston Holt: Isn't that something? Again, these shows, Smallville or Supernatural, I swear with every actor in Canada, there's one degree of separation.

Peter McCully: And you have a connection through Smallville to Donald Sutherland.

Greyston Holt: No, I do, huh?

Peter McCully: Kristin Kreuk, who co-starred in Smallville, now is in Murder in a Small Town, filmed in BC,

of course.

Greyston Holt: Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. I actually had worked with Rossiff years ago, maybe 15-plus years ago. We were both guest stars on a series called Flashpoint. So I'd met him before. He's a great guy.

Peter McCully: That's Rossiff Sutherland, who plays the police chief, one of the sons of Donald Sutherland.

Greyston Holt: Yeah.

Greyston Holt: Rest in peace, Canadian legend.

Dave Graham: When the pandemic hit and everything was shut down, including movie sets, you and your wife, Christina, found yourself in kind of a unique situation because, well, no other working actors could be within six feet of each other on set, and that offered a unique opportunity for you.

Greyston Holt: It sure did, yeah. So the workaround for the social distancing, especially with lead actors, was that in the very early days, we're talking early June of 2020, we're just out of lockdowns. But an idea that some productions had to work around the social distancing was to hire actor couples as the leads so that for any intimacy, kissing, or even just talking close to one another, moistly talking as I think our prime minister put it-

at the time. That was the workaround. So there were some opportunities for local actors who were couples to lead in some movies. And so Cristina and I starred in this low-budget movie of the week, but it was fun. We shot it up in wine country in Kelowna. I think we were possibly the first production back in North America after lockdown.

We felt the responsibility to do it, to be safe. It was a terrible time for many people, but that was one fun little thing that COVID brought Cristina and I.

Peter McCully: Did Cristina learn to speak another language during COVID? How many languages does she speak?

Greyston Holt: 47 languages. She speaks four languages.

She's very fluent in French, English, Italian, and basically fluent in Spanish. She's certainly conversational. Yeah, she puts me to shame. I speak English fairly well, I think. We'll let your listeners be the judges of that. I am learning Italian, or I've been learning it for the past number of years, and so I'm conversational in Italian now because it's important for us for our daughter to grow up hearing it.

And then we go to Italy once a year too, so it's nice to be able to use it there.

Peter McCully: You two must be busy. She recently starred in an Argentinian drama, I think it was called Back to Buenos Aires, which won Best Foreign Feature at the film festival in San Diego and another in Arizona

Greyston Holt: It's called Ariel, back to Buenos Aires.

Cristina started shooting it winter of 2020, right before COVID really started blowing up. So she was down in Argentina shooting that, and COVID was progressively getting worse and really making the news. At the time, there were no cases down there. It was getting serious up in North America, and I was planning on going down and spending some time with her there.

I was just finishing up a project in Ontario. Long story short, they had to call it quits halfway through production. Cristina had a harrowing time trying to get out of Argentina and back to Canada because flights were being canceled left, right, and center. Everything was so unknown. And she made it back to Canada, which is actually kind of part of the reason we ended up living on Salt Spring.

I was living in an apartment in Gastown, Vancouver. She had to do a two-week quarantine. I wanted to quarantine with her, so I suggested, "Let's just get an Airbnb on Salt Spring. We can go for walks at least, go for drives. We can go to a beach. It'll feel more or less normal than being cooped up in an apartment for two weeks."

So she said that was great. That two weeks turned into two months, and then that sort of planted the seed in our minds that we could probably move here and make this work. Back to her movie, they shot half of it right around when COVID broke out. At the time, the COVID cases in Argentina were bad, so they didn't want to finish the movie there. But in Uruguay, they'd done a better job of managing it, so they finished the movie in a different country, believe it or not.

Dave Graham: Aside from the frantic scheduling issues from time to time trying to be a family, is it easier being an actor when your partner is also an actor when it comes to, you know, understanding what goes on day to day?

Greyston Holt: For the most part, it makes it easier. Yeah, you just have someone who understands the lifestyle, the last-minute nature of productions and obligations, and you have someone who can do your auditions with you, tape auditions, who knows how to act and knows the whole process. The part where it gets complicated, especially now since we have a three-year-old, is if both of us happen to be working at the same time and book a project at the same time, it gets a little tricky because, you know, our days on set are very long.

You're there minimum eight, 10 hours, and often you're there 12, 14, 16 hours a day So that makes childcare very difficult. And we've only run into this problem, I think, twice since we've had Sienna. While I was shooting Neagley in Toronto, she booked a movie in Prince Edward Island, and we had Sienna with us in Toronto, obviously, and we figured it was best for her to go shoot the movie by herself, Sienna to stay with us.

So my mom flew out, Cristina's aunt flew out to Toronto, and they both took shifts, each for a week and a half, to help us make it happen. But it gets complicated.

Peter McCully: I can imagine.

Greyston Holt: Yeah.

Peter McCully: Did you know that you and Cristina both have a James Bond connection?

Greyston Holt: I'm the next James Bond? Is that it?

Peter McCully: That'd be cool.

Greyston Holt: Yeah, that'd be cool, right?

Peter McCully: Well, I was thinking of Cary Elwes started with Cristina in a movie called The Art of More. He was considered for the role of James Bond at one time.

Greyston Holt: I didn't know that.

Peter McCully: And you were in Chesapeake Shores, filmed here on Vancouver Island, with Barbara Niven. Her former father-in-law was the very first James Bond, David Niven, in Casino Royale.

Greyston Holt: You did some impressive research here, Peter. You know Nardwuar? He would come up with the most obscure stuff and just completely stump his guests, and I feel like I just got

Peter McCully: Nardwuar'd. Well, thank you, but that wasn't research. That just happens to be me knowing a whole bunch of bits that come together sometimes.

Greyston Holt: I love it. I love it. And no, I was unaware of that, but thank you. I'm gonna keep that fun fact for myself now.

Dave Graham: On Chesapeake Shores, you joined a series in which music was already an important part of the story, and you had previously played a country music star yourself. Did anybody on Chesapeake Shores know how serious your musical background was?

Greyston Holt: Yeah, and I love Spanish classical music, and I actually learned how to play classical guitar. I would always have my guitar on set, so the producers were aware of that, and they wrote into a scene where I played some classical music, so that was fun.

Song: Greyston Holt, Capricho Arabe - Francisco Tarrega

That's the piece I played on Chesapeake Shores, Capricho Arabe, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it correctly, by Francisco Tarrega. It was, I think, late 1800s, early 1900s when he wrote that.

Peter McCully: And what's your guitar of choice, Greyston?

Greyston Holt: I mostly play my electric these days, but I mostly play no guitars these days.

It's tough to find the time with a little one and our busy lives. And honestly, owning a house is so much darn work.

Peter McCully: It is.

Greyston Holt: Oh my goodness. The painting, the yard work. So yeah, these days most of my guitars are collecting dust. It'll always be there for me, and I just know that at this time in my life, I'm just a dad and I'm a dad of a young child.

I love spending all my free time with her when she's around. I'll get back to it, but at this moment in time, it's just me being dad.

Peter McCully: a serial renovator.

Greyston Holt: That's the Salt Spring life. Your house never stops growing on Salt Spring.

Dave Graham: Greyston, if you had a chance to jam with any BC musician, who would it be?

Greyston Holt: Probably Harry Manx. He's lived here for many years. I used to see him performing at the Saturday market busking. I believe he won a Juno for best blues album a number of years ago. But he has a really unique approach to blues. I think he calls it East meets West blues. He plays many stringed instruments, but one of my favorites, and I think what gives him his unique sound, is this thing called the Mohan Veena, which is a hybrid of a sitar with a slide guitar.

Really interesting instrument. It looks more or less the shape of a traditional guitar, but it has all these smaller strings that run under the main strings like a sitar would. And he uses that on many of his songs. But I would love to play with him because I always thought his approach to incorporating some Eastern sounds into Western blues was a really unique way of doing it.

Song: Harry Manx Can’t be satisfied, waters

Peter McCully: Well, that's another connection for you, Greyston. That's Harry Manx. He's a neighbor of you or aforementioned singer, Valdy.

Greyston Holt: Neighbors?

Peter McCully: Could see his house from his house.

Greyston Holt: No way. I didn't know that.

Peter McCully: Yes.

Greyston Holt: I'd like to believe that they're out there jamming every night in the light of the moon.

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Dave Graham: This is The Pulse Community Podcast, a BC Day long weekend special with our co-host Greyston Holt. Greyston, your family has Hungarian roots. You've said you always wanted to visit Hungary, and then your career took you to Budapest for an episode of FBI International.

Can you tell us about that call?

Greyston Holt: That call happened while we were vacationing on Maui, which is almost as far away from Hungary as you could possibly get. And in the true nature of the business, they basically said, "Can you be here in three days?" And so we were there with our then four-and-a-half-month-old daughter, and we had to cut our trip short a week.

We flew back to Salt Spring Island. Cristina's aunt came out to help her with Sienna while I was away, and I made my way to Budapest. My heritage is Hungarian, and I always wanted to go, and it was nice that work brought me there. I had a lot of free time over the three weeks I was there, so I really had a chance to explore the city, the food, the culture.

I had an amazing time.

Peter McCully: Any family history you were able to research or any relatives you were able to meet?

Greyston Holt: I met some relatives, yeah, some second, third cousins. It's crazy going there. Walking around, I was like, "That guy could be my uncle. She could be my aunt." To finally be somewhere where I was like, "Oh, these are my people.

I look like these people," it's my first time experiencing that. So that was kinda cool, but yeah, I had a great trip.

Peter McCully: I did want to ask you about a show you were in a few years ago, which was Season 1 of Night Agent on Netflix. That turned out to be one of the most watched shows globally. It now is in its third season.

Could you tell while filming that It might connect with a larger audience? Is there a feeling on the set where everybody is thinking, "Gosh, this is great. This is really gonna hit"?

Greyston Holt: No, I had no idea. I had a recurring role on that, so maybe the lead cast had a different feeling. I just came in and did my job.

Often on bigger productions like that, it's a big machine, right? It can feel a little impersonal. I went and did my job, and felt good with the work I did, and But yeah, I had no idea it was gonna be that kind of success, and it's really hard to predict those things. Sometimes, for certain reasons, shows just blow up.

It was a good show, but I think it was also just the right place, the right time. I think it's still top five all-time highest viewings for

Dave Graham: Netflix. So far in your career, you've played a wide array of characters. There's werewolves, cowboys, singers, detectives. Any role or character that you aspire to down the road?

Greyston Holt: I always thought it'd be fun to play, like, a Jason Bourne-type role. A man of mystery, former CIA, gone rogue. I would love to do something like that. Traveling the world, yeah.

Peter McCully: I did wanna mention that Sam Neill passed away very recently as we're chatting here today. Yeah, it's sad. One of your very early roles was playing his younger self in a TV series, Alcatraz.

Greyston Holt: Yeah, it's sad to hear of his passing. I played his character in flashbacks, like you just said. I only met him once at our table read where you, the first time you read the script out loud with the cast, and so I met him briefly, and obviously I'm a massive fan of his work, in particular everyone's gonna say Jurassic Park.

But for a little boy who liked dinosaurs, that one still stands with me, and he was such a gentleman and a legend, and yeah, sad to hear of his passing.

Peter McCully: Another gentleman and a legend, Danny Glover, was in the news recently announcing he is fighting Parkinson's disease.

Greyston Holt: Oh, I'm sad to hear that. Yeah, we shot a movie together maybe 15 years ago, something like that.

Man, just such a consummate professional and true gentleman. He always made me think of that phrase, "They don't make 'em like that anymore." Just the nicest man. I mean, 10 years ago I was going to a convention in Germany, one of these sort of fan conventions where you meet fans, sign autographs, that kinda thing.

And often on those you can bring a plus one, and so I brought Evan, who was in my band, one of my best friends. I spoke about him earlier. I invited him. It just so happened Danny Glover was also attending this convention. We landed and then we had a two-hour van ride to the event, and so it was myself, one of my childhood best friends, and Danny Glover in a van for two hours.

It was just one of those pinch me moments that if I could go back to us being in high school, Evan and I, knowing that fast-forward 10, 15 years we would be in Germany in a van with Danny Glover just shooting the shit. That was pretty cool.

Dave Graham: We should try and slip in another BC musician tune here, Greyston.

Greyston Holt: Let's do Crazy Talk by Chilliwack.

Dave Graham: Any particular reason why?

Greyston Holt: Bill Henderson, the singer of Chilliwack, lives on Salt Spring. We see him in town all the time grabbing groceries. Great guy. My dad's played with him many times, and I think we'll be playing with him again this summer at some point. I think my dad will appreciate that one.

Let's do it.

Song: Chiliwack - Crazy Talk

Peter McCully: Greyston, thanks for being on the podcast today with us. This has really been fun and eye-opening.

Greyston Holt: I hope it's been eye-opening. What have you learned, Peter?

Peter McCully: You have a really great backstory. You've been an actor for almost 25 years now.

Greyston Holt: Yeah, it's kinda crazy.

Peter McCully: Time flies by.

Greyston Holt: Time does fly by, especially when you throw in COVID, a child.

It- it's been warped in all dimensions.

Dave Graham: How has becoming parents, you and Cristina, how has that changed your outlook on your work life? You're both working actors. And what about your home life?

Greyston Holt: It's affected everything, every aspect of life, being a parent. For work, it's, like I mentioned earlier, it can get complicated if Cristina and I book roles at the same time.

It certainly has caused us to be a little more selective in what we take, but it's also given us, I think, that much more drive to really build a wonderful life for us and our daughter. Having a child also puts things into perspective. That is the most important thing in your world, and everything else seems kind of trivial after that, and in its own way take the pressure off of our jobs and the work also because it's like that's all that matters.

It's two-sided, right? There's the pressure of wanting to build this good life, but then also, like, nothing matters but you, our daughter. Yeah.

Peter McCully: What would you think one day if your daughter wants to follow in the family business?

Greyston Holt: Oh, boy, I think we're already there. Oh, man. It's certainly nothing that we are trying to push on her at all, but she certainly has a knack for performing, be it music or acting or dancing.

She seems to be very much interested in the performing arts, so we shall see.

Peter McCully: Looking back at your journey so far, because you've only been into this for 25 years, there's lots of time down the road, what advice would you give to aspiring actors who are just starting out in the industry?

Greyston Holt: Oh, boy. I think my advice has changed over the years.

It's such a vastly different business than it was when we started out. Now there's the threat of AI and auditioning in the room is rare. Everything's on tape and there's less in-person interaction. I guess the one piece of advice that has stood over the years is just to try to be thick-skinned in that there are a million reasons why you didn't get the part.

Most of it has nothing to do with your actual audition. It's your hair color. It's does he look like this other actor? Does he match up with this actress? And there's so many reasons why you don't get the part. When you're having a real dry spell, it's real soft comfort, but it's true though.

Dave Graham: I'm Dave Graham for Peter McCully.

That's it for us on this BC Day long weekend special edition of The Pulse Community Podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting Vancouver Island Music and local business, and we'll see you next week, hopefully with fewer werewolves.

Rockin' Rhonda & The Uptown Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave, oh listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave. So to speak. Laughs and insights everywhere. What a treat. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics, all right. Join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.