Griffin Cork | Actor · Producer | Numera Films
Griffin is a Canadian actor and producer who has been working in the film, theatre, and voice industries for over a decade. Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, his creativity was fostered through Theatre Works, Quest Theatre, Calgary Young People’s Theatre, Theatre Alberta’s ARTSTREK, and Central Memorial Performing and Visual Arts Program.
His professional career began at twelve years old, taking on the titular role in A Paintbrush for Piccolo with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and performing in the 1700 seat Jack Singer Concert Hall. Griffin later secured his first film role, acting alongside Matthew Perry (Friends, The Whole Nine Yards) in the feature film The Ron Clark Story. Since then he has worked with Stephen Amell (Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow) and Maggie Grace (Lost, Taken) in the TV Movie When Calls The Heart and Colm Feore (Thor, Chicago) in the feature film Everfall.
He has worked with a number of theatre companies including Theatre Calgary, Theatre Junction, The Shakespeare Company, Lunchbox Theatre, Birnton Theatricals, Thou Art Here Theatre, Calgary Opera, Shakespeare By The Bow, W&M Physical Theatre, and the In Arms Theatre Collective. Griffin is the former host of the talk-show Studio 315 on Shaw TV, and can be seen on Heartland (CBC), Abracadavers (The Fantasy Network/Amazon Prime), Pet Heroes (CMTV), and Hug-O-Gram (REVERY, Telus Optik). You may also recognize his voice as Kouji Ibuki on Cardfight! Vanguard, Brutal of the Martial Arts on Futurecard BuddyFight X, and Kibaltes on Futurecard BuddyFight Hundred.
Griffin spent a year as the D. Michael Dobbin Apprentice at Alberta Theatre Projects, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Alberta in 2019. He was named one of the 10 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta’s Emerging Artists in 2020, and one of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts’ Top 25 Young Artists in 2017. Griffin won a BroadwayWorld Awards for Best Actor in a Play (Professional) for Becky Modes’ one-person show Fully Committed, and was honoured to be the recipient of the Duval Lang Theatre for Young Audience Emerging Leader Award at the 2015 Betty Mitchell Awards. He was named an Arts Champion of Calgary in 2012. He is represented by The Characters Talent Agency.
IMDB
Can you please provide a brief overview of your journey in the film and TV industry?
I started pretty early in the film and television industry as an actor; my first ever gig was in 2006, acting with Matthew Perry in The Ron Clark Story. I did some more projects as a kid, and then took a pretty substantial break from the business. In 2014, I started to re-immerse myself into the local, independent film scene. Not too long after that, I was cast in the very first iteration of a little series called Abracadavers. It was my first time working with the majority of the Numera Films team, and even as a performer on set, I could tell it was something special. For lack of a better explanation, I basically pestered my way into my first Producing job – haranguing the OG Numera folks to see how I could help turn our little pilot into a full-fledged series. Since I joined the Numera Films team in 2016 and the Thousand Year Films team in 2019, I realized independent producing scratches an itch in my brain that I didn’t even know was there. There are so many fantastic storytellers in our province, and I’ve had the great fortune of producing with North Country Cinema, Aagimaak Productions, and Solaris Productions– to name a few.
What are some of your key accomplishments?
There’s been a lot of great moments over the past few years. Abracadavers screened at the Raindance Film Festival, and our little Canadian series has been sold to the United States, Spain, Africa, and the Middle East. We’ll have our Canadian Primetime Broadcast Premiere in Early 2025. Thousand Year Films’ first feature film, Father of Nations, had a theatrical release with Cineplex Odeon. Most recently, the Numera team brought a slate of five feature films to Alberta from some international partners we met at the American Film Market – those are all in the can and at market right now. In terms of personal achievements, I was awarded Queen Elizabeth’s II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal in 2023 for my contributions to Alberta’s society and culture, and I was named a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta’s Emerging Artist in 2020 in the disciplines of film and theatre.
What are your current and/or future projects?
The Numera team is deep in post-production on Abracadavers: Season 3, the last few feature films on the slate, and a TV Pilot we shot in the summer. We just got word that we’ll be teaching a Film & New Media unit at Central Memorial High School, and we’ll be working on developing a new series with longtime collaborator, Reamonn Joshee, with the support of the Canada Media Fund and YES TV. Additionally, our new series, Eyes In The Woods, has been officially green-lit by the Independent Production Fund and the Canada Media Fund – we’ll be shooting that in the Spring/Summer of 2025. The Thousand Year Films team is wrapping up post-production on another feature film, and the series I co-produced with North Country Cinema and Ghost River Theatre, So Dark The Sky, is starting its Festival Circuit. Finally, Aagimaak Productions, a newly formed, Indigenous-owned production company has it’s debut film, The Hunter and His Apprentice, finishing up post-production and starting it’s festival circuit in 2025. As most Indie Producers, there’s always a gazillion thing in the development and blue-sky stages.
Have there been any key moments in your career that changed your trajectory?
There’s a moment that always sticks in my brain, which happened during the production of Abracadavers: Season 1. The cast and crew of the show is sitting and laughing around a pool table in an Innisfail diner that no longer exists; it was the first ‘big’ project for a lot of us on the team. I had never been on a production where the cast and crew hierarchy/barriers seemed to dissipate like they did on this. Up to that point, I never had the opportunity to share chicken wings with a gaffer or roll Dungeons and Dragons characters up with an art director. There are so many hard parts about this business, but working with people that you love, respect, and enjoy being around make those hard parts a little bit easier. I think there’s sometimes an impotence to try and do everything yourself, and I fell into that trap too. But when you work with people that you trust and you get to share the load (and the accolades), it makes this industry a bit more sustainable (in every sense of the word).
