Vernon actor and electrician Harrison Coe can be seen in a Hallmark Christmas movie that airs tonight.
Coe was was cast in Fixing Up Christmas, a holiday love story that was filmed in Âé¶čAV by Reelone Entertainment earlier this year. The film airs on CityTV at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10.
In the film, Coe plays the owner of an architecture firm who comes up with the idea to throw a Christmas party to help the firm land a big deal. He hires an event planner who bumps into his son, the male lead, in a coffee shop, âand sparks fly.â
Itâs far from Coeâs first TV or movie role, but itâs the first major role since he decided to revive his acting career early this year.
Born in Vernon, Coeâs family moved to Calgary when he was three. Later in life he moved to Vancouver having caught the acting bug in high school, and there he started building his acting resume, appearing in Stargate-SG1, The Outer Limits and four episodes of the X-Files, to name a few of his bigger roles.
Coe later moved to Toronto, met his wife who was also from Vernon, had a kid and wound up getting out of acting.
âThings sort of didnât work out that great over the years,â he said of his acting days in Toronto. âI thought, Iâve got to bring in a good pay cheque and figured everyone says to go into the trades, so at 43 I picked up everything and changed my whole life.â
Coe brought his family back to Vernon and began working as an electrician. He still took part in community theatre at Powerhouse Theatre and OâKeefe Ranch, but with a family and a new career with Capra Electric, his professional acting days appeared to be pulled off stage.
It was Matt Brown at the Powerhouse Theatre who convinced Coe to give acting another go.
âHe kind of talked me into throwing my hat back into the ring, so I gave it a shot and just started landing things pretty much right away,â Coe said.
Fixing Up Christmas was shot in March this year. Two months later Coe shot another Hallmark movie and then another one four months after that. Right now heâs shooting a CBC mini series called Bones of Crows, and heâll be shooting a third Hallmark movie next week.
Between the many acting gigs and his electrical work, itâs been a busy year.
âIt feels a bit surreal being an electrician and being an actor at the same time, and very surprising,â he said. âIâve worked more (acting jobs) this year than I did in about four years in Toronto, so itâs just astounding.â
The Okanagan film scene has grown dramatically since Coeâs first stint as an actor, and he says the regionâs diverse landscape makes it a viable shooting location for a wide variety of productions.
âThe Okanagan presents a really diverse landscape to shoot in. I know there was another movie that shot here and it was supposed to be the ocean, but they used the lakes instead.â
The full list of Coeâs acting roles can be found on .
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