Taken from our Summer 2020 issue. Order your copy now.

Exploring the intersection of fame, social media and morality, upcoming film Infamous follows a young couple en route to Hollywood, posting their criminal escapades online to feed an obsession for gaining followers and going viral. Set to star alongside Bella Thorne, Canadian actor Jack Manley — who is currently best known for his role in Netflix’s horror drama The Order — sits down with his co-star and old friend Adam DiMarco, to look back on the intertwined paths they’ve taken since high school.

AM: You shaved! I liked the facial hair. Whenever I show people your Instagram they always love the photos of you on Infamous with the bleached blonde hair and the beard and the tattoos. I think that’s your peak cool look, what do you think?
JM: I think so right now, yeah…

A: Let’s just stay on the topic of Infamous for a bit.
J: Oh have we started? I thought this was just you just like –

A: Hey bro, this is my interview style. It’s all organic!
J: I just didn’t know facial hair was going to be a talking point…

A: …You showed me a couple of scenes from Infamous when we were on set that looked really cool, specifically this Children of Men-style, one-shot car scene. What were the challenges working on an ambitious project like that? And what was it like living in Oklahoma where you shot it?
J: I’d say there are challenges and advantages to both. The filming style was very run-and-gun, one camera, not a lot of blocking. Josh Caldwell wrote and directed and shot the whole thing and we had this amazing cinematographer Eve Cohen who helped plan all the shots. But what was awesome with Josh is we had a lot of freedom to move instinctually wherever we wanted to. Working in TV you have all these specific marks and for me it takes away some of the naturalism of it.

A: I hate feeling trapped in the blocking of a scene.
J: Yeah, you can feel so trapped and definitely in your head about it, so it was nice on Infamous to kind of not worry about it and know Josh was there following us. Since we were doing so many A long takes there was a lot of rehearsal. That one car scene you’re talking about — we spent probably half the day rehearsing it before we started shooting. I like that kind of stuff.

A: Me too.
J: It’s a fun challenge. And living in Oklahoma –

A: Oh you remembered the other question! Nice! What a pro.
J: Ha! Living in Oklahoma was cool. I met a lot of really nice people. It was super hot, it was sometimes like something out of a movie. Lots of characters. But it really lent to the script and lent to my character, it made everything more visceral and easy because I was just living in that life. As opposed to filming something in LA, you’re in the studio and then you go home.

A: I remember you saying how fucking hot it was. Do you feel like the heat informed your character at all? Maybe lazier, calm, pissed off, hot under the skin?
J: Absolutely. It’s so hot that you feel kind of slow and have to conserve your energy. It’s an added layer of feeling and environment. Kind of like that noise too — at night time there’s those crickets and bugs that are so loud. You watch these movies like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Kalifornia that take place in the south and you hear those sounds, and being there really reminded me of that.

A: OK. So let’s go back to high school –
J: No! Let’s not!

A: We both grew up in Oakville. How did you find growing up there?
J: It’s a nice suburban town and I think we were super fortunate to grow up in a place like Oakville. I miss the kind of quietness of suburban life sometimes.

A: We took different paths after high school — what did you do? Didn’t you sell your car and move to LA or something?
J: Right after high school I went to UCLA for half the year for the film program, because I still wanted to do film. And then I dropped out of that, came back home, and it wasn’t until then that I started to pursue acting. I remember you were just getting traction so fast out in Vancouver. You came out in all these things and I was like, ‘Damn, this kid’s crushing it!’

A: But it wasn’t really until The Order that we really became closer friends.
J: It was just so nice to start filming a show with someone that, even though we weren’t super close, we just had so much familiarity and a past.

A: Yeah, dude. I remember when the cast was starting to fill out, there was this big question mark. Who would play Jack? When you texted me, I was just… I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘I’m so excited to work with Jake.’ It’s so cool that we have these weirdly intertwining lives now. I feel pretty connected to you in that way.
J: And we have a lot of mutual friends now. The Order was so big and important for both of us. It’s a big part of our life.

A: We had an ongoing bet during the filming of season two, unknowingly to another cast member. Do you want to come clean about that? Hamish may be reading this…
J: I don’t know how it started but we just started calling Thomas Elms by his character name, Hamish Duke. We had a bet with each other that every time one of us said Thomas instead of Hamish we had to give the other 20 bucks. And every episode, as the season went on, we upped the amount of money. I think I started off the season really well and you owed me some good money, but by the end of filming you had won it all back and then some.

A: In the last few episodes it was up to 100 bucks every time one of us called him by his real name. I think you were really tired from filming by that point and started to slip up a lot.
J: I was even trying to get people to trap you and have you say his real name when I wasn’t around! Because it was one thing when it was just you and I hanging out and playing the game, but it would seem really weird to other members of the cast and crew when we kept referring to Thomas by his character’s name. You were too good, man. You were on it.

A: You tried to trap me but I know a cop when I see one. I don’t think Thomas ever found out. Maybe he got a kick out of us always referring to him as Hamish. He might have thought we were doing method acting.
J: I’d be super interested if he caught on and noticed. Or didn’t? Maybe he won’t see this interview and we can keep it going next season…