Edmonton-born actor to make Succession debut

Edmonton-born actor Holly Cinnamon describes the Emmy Award winning HBO series Succession as a "cutthroat version" of The Office and "a joy" to work on.

After serving for years as a stand-in on the show, Cinnamon will make her debut for the fourth and final season, which premiers Sunday.

Originally cast in 2020 as a stand-in for Shiv Roy, one of the show's main characters, Cinnamon said it was incredible to see the cast work and watch every take from behind the scenes.

"If you're a fan of the show, you know how funny they are and how much they improvise, so it was just a joy to be on set," she said.

When an opportunity arose to play across from them, she took it and will make her on-screen appearance in episode 406.

"It was fun and a little nerve wracking to play across from these actors that I had watched and stood in for every day," she said. "But everyone was so lovely and it's just an amazing show and an amazing cast and crew.

"Like, we became a family."

It's not the first role Cinnamon has had on screen. She appeared in five episodes of the Netflix series Marvel's Daredevil. She also had a role in the recently released Walt Disney's Hocus Pocus 2.

'SMALL TOWN QUEER'

In addition to her acting career, Cinnamon is a musician and she released the self-produced single Small Town Queer, on Tuesday.

Her music is an important creative outlet that fulfills her and offers some control outside of the unpredictable world of an actor, she said, where every thousand auditions turns into maybe one role.

"Acting is so much out of our control," she added. "You're always dependent on someone else casting you and hiring you. So for me, it's really important [that] my music is self-produced and I own the rights to it all."

Where Cinnamon plays mostly female roles on screen, she uses she/her and they/them pronouns and said Queer identity is a key piece of her music.

The new single, she added, is about growing up Queer in small-town Alberta and the loneliness that came along with that.

"If you're Queer and you feel like you're isolated or in the middle of nowhere, I hope that this song speaks to you and I hope that you find those little crumbs on the path that leads you to figure out who you are deeper and deeper," she said.

Without many LGBTQ2S+ teachers or role models to look up to as a child, Cinnamon said she drew inspiration from Barbara Streisand and Tori Amos. Now, she's happy to fill that role for others when she spends time in Alberta working with Opera Nuova.

"I see the landscape of the Queer community in Edmonton changing, and it just brings me so much joy," Cinnamon said. "I'm really happy that it's really come full-circle for me and I feel really empowered in who I am now."

For more information or to keep up with Cinnamon's latest projects, follow the links to her websites for music and acting.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jessica Robb