Adrian Holmes is a cop in Montréal, Canada. The Barbadian has been in that role since 2011. He works out of the Montréal Police Department with partner Ben Chartier. As beat cops they patrol the urban sprawl of Montréal downtown 19th district, in cruiser No. 2.
Adrian has seen some horrific things for the past four years, navigating the blurred lines between Montréal politics and organised crime. He has seen friendship and enmity, loyalty and betrayal in the unpredictable and fragile world of cops.
With all that turmoil how does Adrian cope? How does he shut off when he goes home at night? It is a good thing Adrian isn’t really a cop – he only plays one.
Adrian is a character, officer Nick Barron, on 19-2, the gripping police drama series on cable station Bravo – set in and filmed in Montréal.
Adrian is elated, as is partner Jared Keeso who plays Ben Chartier, that they have begun filming for Season 3 of the ten-episode, hour-long drama co-produced by Montréal’s Sphere Media Plus and Echo Media.
“I have to give it to the writers who have done an amazing job. The script has me as lead actor and I am happy as the first Afro-Canadian man to be leading my own series on a Canadian mainstream show. It is a huge honour,” said the actor, while seated in the offices of The Nation Publishing Company. He was on break from filming and as usual that break is spent home in Barbados, he told EASY magazine.
“I come home as often as I can, at least once a year. This year I was fortunate to get home twice so far,” he said.
Adrian is Welsh by birth, but “only by a minute,” having been born in Wrexham in March 1974.
His mother, Beverley Dixon (nee Holmes) moved to England in the early 1970s to work as a nurse. Originally from Black Rock, St Michael, she gave birth to a bouncing baby boy named Adrian Randolph Spooner, son of Ronnie Spooner, at a hospital in Wales.
They moved in 1978 to Canada where Adrian grew up in Vancouver and still resides today, albeit criss-crossing to Los Angeles to do movie roles in the United States.
Adrian was bitten by the acting bug from young, citing the late pop star Michael Jackson as an early influence.
“I always liked to entertain my family’s guests by doing the moonwalk and Michael Jackson impressions. In elementary school I got the role of the Lion in Wizard Of Oz and I was over the moon as that was my first big role – moving from playing elves in Christmas plays,” he said, chuckling.
In high school he got involved in the arts and took part in the drama club doing musical theatre.
Leaving high school he wanted some thing to fall back in in case acting didn’t pan out. Since his mum was a nurse he was convinced subtly to go to nursing school.
He did and after a year of working in a rehab facility he got his big break.
He was just lucky. he surmises.
“There are a lot of peaks and valleys in the acting business. It is very unpredictable and you have to be thick-skinned. You can’t take everything personally. There is a lot of rejection you have to face. But nursing grounded me. In the rehab facility there were people with paralysis and strokes, so just to be able to pour a glass of water or go to the bathroom by myself I didn’t take for granted after seeing what some of my patients went through.”
He made the decision to do acting full-time afterwards. Since a lot of the United States shows are shot in Toronto and Vancouver, which is his backyard, he got the chance to work on a lot of American shows. First thing he did was changed his last name to Holmes, his mother’s maiden name.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t like Spooner. But for me it didn’t fit into the acting scheme of things. Adrian Spooner didn’t ring right as an actor name so I changed it to Holmes. It has worked so far, so it was a good decision,” he said.
He started out with small bit parts as the token black man in stereotypical roles of Thug No.1 or Drug Dealer No.2 or Gangbanger No.1 and his first “major” role came on Smallville in the fifth season.
“I was one of Lex Luthor’s henchmen. It was a lot of fun and in the ninth season my agent called me and asked if I wanted to go back. I said ‘of course’ and they offered me a role of a character named Basquait and I had powers like Superman.”
Adrian was giddy-headed as he talked about being a black superhero, a step up in roles for him as a man of colour at that time. He shot the finale and hasn’t had much time off since as roles started rolling in. After Smallville he became black police lieutenant Pike in the series Arrow (for Arrow fanatics he was the one who demoted detective Lance and took away his badge) and will be having a recurring role in that series which is currently on cable.
“Series seem to be my thing as now I am in my third season in the cop drama 19-2,” he said, laughing as he called the moments of shooting all the series “surreal.”
“As lead actor and being black I am able to show other minorities it can be done. A lot of us want to have our own show and time and the business have definitely changed now and a lot of Afro-Americans are also now getting the spotlight,” he said. He cited Kerry Washington (lead actress in Scandal), Viola Davis (How To Get Away With Murder) and Terrence Howard in Empire on a long list of “us” in lead roles.
To get into Hollywood he wanted to build up a good resume so he wouldn’t go to LA relatively unknown.
A lot of aspiring actors make that mistake, he said, and so they struggle to get a foot in the door.
“I wanted to do as much shows as possible so LA would come knocking at my door. But the list of rejections is just as long as the list of work I have gotten,” he said unashamedly.
“I read for The Butler (the lead role and also the role of the waiter that went to Cuba Gooding Jr and also the Lenny Kravitz role) and I read for Selma as well (role of Martin Luther King’s right hand man).
“To work with Lee Daniels would have been incredible but I believe everything happens for a reason. You get the roles you are suppose to have and for every rejection that I get I look at it as getting closer to what I am supposed to do. I leave everything in God’s hand and so far He has been a great GPS, directing me to certain roles.”
Adrian also has been offered roles, where he hasn’t had to audition or read for the part.
“Those are nice too. It is a good feeling when people know your work and appreciate what you have done and say ‘Hey, we have this role for you. It is yours’.”
If by now you want to Google movies where Adrian has appeared, some will come up like Seven Deadly Sins; Elysium with Matt Damon, Vendetta with Dean Cain; Frankie & Alice with Halle Berry; Tactical Force; Debug and more.
Adrian said that while he is somewhat famous in the acting arena he is treated as a normal person in Black Rock, St Michael.
“I still am Adrian to them. We, the cousins, just hang out and I have two younger brothers and a nephew and we give each other a hard time, but I love that. They keep me humble and I don’t want to be treated any other way.
“They are all very, very proud of me and everything I do I do with my family in mind as I am representing them. I want to make sure I do the Holmes name proud,” he said, adding that his dad lives in Barbados.
Home also means his favourite dish of pudding and souse and diving the wrecks having been certified on his last trip by PADI as an open water diver.
With all the success he has had Adrian is not stingy when it comes to sharing as he is currently trying to see if any upcoming movies he has to do can be filmed here, even if partially.
“Barbados is so beautiful. I don’t know why Hollywood hasn’t jumped at shooting here. I started my own production company last year called Beyond Measures Production so hopefully I can do something.”
He mentions brainstorming with producer and actor, local lad Sean Fields and hope they can collaborate on some ideas.
Adrian is a method actor, so for 19-2 they go on real police ride alongs, go to the shooting range and get full training in police procedures – even the right way to handcuff a suspect – “to be as authentic as possible”.
How 19-2 came about was purely through two friends talking: “Jared and I had worked on a couple of other stints and we were shooting Elysium in Mexico City and at dinner I said, ‘Jared, how cool it would be if we had our own show? We work so well together. What about a show like Bad Boys or Miami Vice?’” Fast Forward to July 2012 and Adrian was in Montréal for his green card interview to work in the United States and by September 2012 he was shooting the pilot for 19-2. He calls it “speaking it into existence.”
“I had auditioned and Jared had auditioned unbeknownst to me. We both have the same agent and all these things just fell into place. Things work out the way they are supposed to.”
His mum is his hero and biggest fan.
“It was because of her that I am where I am. I just wanted to make her proud of me. She lives an hour away from me in Vancouver so I visit but not as often as she wants,” he said, laughing.
He is fan of other actors such as Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, and Al Pacino (who he worked with in Two For The Money).
His latest movie is just in time for Christmas called a Christmas Horror Story, starring William Shatner.
“I take whatever I can get as it comes. I love acting and challenging myself in different roles. I don’t box myself into one character. It is more fun that way. I want to be versatile and not be seen as a black actor but an actor who happens to be black.”
“The colour of my skin should not have to be such an influence on the casting. People have to be more colour blind and look at you for the talent you have and if you are the right person for the role.”