For London, Ontario-area actors Kendra Leigh Timmins and Jonny Gray, it's just been a great 'ride' that took them across the Atlantic to Northern Ireland for five weeks of filming for Nickelodeon and YTV's newest series, Ride, premiering Monday 5th September 2016 at 7 p.m. on YTV, with episodes every weekday for five weeks, and Nickelodeon channels globally soon after.
Kendra Timmins, of London, stars in the new children’s show Ride, on YTV. (MORRIS LAMONT, The London Free Press)
It's a show about a girl, Katherine (Kit) Bridges - played by Timmins - who moves to England with her father, Rudy, for his new job at Covington Academy, an elite equestrian boarding school.
The show, a joint production of Canada's Breakthrough Entertainment and UK-based Buccaneer Media, follows Kit as she develops relationships with her new friends, including the horse TK, the most stubborn in the stable.
Among the students she meets is Josh Luders - played by Gray - a Canadian teen with a knack for finding trouble as he tries to find his place in the world of competitive show jumping.
"I'd never met Jonny until we got on the set," told Timmins, daughter of Randy, one of the founders of London's The Marketing Department, and Debbie, a retired teacher, to The London Free Press.
(L to R): Jonny Gray, Alana Boden, Rameet Rauli, Mike Shara, Kendra Timmins, Oliver Dench, and Manuel Pacific in YTV's Ride
"It was so funny because that's when you realize how small the world is. But it's been fantastic and his family was wonderful, inviting us out to their horse farm in Ilderton so we could get in a little riding. We got along great on and off the set."
Other than two years in Beal secondary school's musical theatre program, Timmins has had little formal training.
She started making commercials when she was eight and has since gone on to appear in several television shows (American Gothic, Saving Hope, Nikita, Cracked, Wingin' It, The Firm, My Babysitter's a Vampire and Degrassi: The Next Generation) and films (Port Hope, The Journey Home and Lost After Dark).
Timmins now lives in Toronto and was in London celebrating her father's birthday.
"It's a really unique show, very heartfelt, very real and genuine," said Timmins of Ride.
Kit (Kendra Timmins) and TK the Horse
"Kit is really quirky, very determined, very stubborn and not afraid to speak her mind or stand up for what she believes in. She's one of those people who speaks before she thinks.
"She grew up on a ranch, so she's very much a free spirit. She comes from a life where there were no rules into a world where there are rules, uniforms, proper behaviour and manners."
The show's 20 episodes were filmed over about two months last winter with outdoor scenes in Northern Ireland and indoor scenes in Toronto.
Also in the show is Gemini award winning actress Sarah Botsford, best known for the Canadian television show E.N.G., in the role of Lady Covington, and Mike Shara, a veteran of Stratford Festival and Shaw Festival, playing Kit's father, Rudy.
Ride was created by writers Jill Girling (Life with Derek, Satisfaction) and Lori Mather-Welch (Would be Kings, Queer As Folk).
Girling also wrote for YTV's Max & Shred, a show Gray starred in as Max, a celebrity snowboarder. Girling recommended Gray for the role of Josh.
"I find Josh to be a really rich character, a kid from Canada who's there trying to figure out if he's up to the standard to become a world-class show jumper," said Gray, a Grade 12 student at Medway High School and an avid skateboarder when not playing hockey with the Ilderton Jets.
"He's just a normal kid, intelligent and charming, but he often gets himself in trouble and has to use that charm to get out of it."
Josh falls for one of the girls, who then calls him for a date. He later discovers that she's a princess.
Aside from Max & Shred, Gray has worked fairly steadily the last several years on television shows, including Private Eye starring Jason Priestly, Annedroids and is now in Hamilton filming another Bruno & Boots television movie, that follows Go Jump in the Pool.
"I've been working pretty much non-stop," said Gray, who admits to dropping a couple of courses last year to ease his workload.
"It's crazy. I can barely keep my schedule together, if not for my parents (Daryl Gray, a surgeon at Victoria Hospital, and Jacquelyn Doucette, a family doctor). My whole family has had my back since it all started.
"But I love this more than anything and wouldn't change a thing."
Filming Ride was "incredible," said Gray.
"Just the environment in Ireland, the weather was so weird, but I loved it. You'd have rain one minute, then a beautiful sunny day. The food was good and the people are really one of a kind, so funny and nice and open."
You can watch The London Free Press' exclusive interview with Kendra Leigh Timmins here on lfpress.com!
More Ride: FULL Episode of RIDE! | Hippophobia & Ophidiophobia | Canada Exclusive Sneak Peek! | YTV!
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