Laughs on the diamond

Jess Salgueiro loves to root for an underdog.

Underdogs such as the Brovaries, the queer beer-league softball team at the heart of Slo Pitch, the new mockumentary comedy series from Crave she stars in. Or her character, the messy but determined Coach Joanne, an underdog if there ever was one.

Or her hometown of Winnipeg, that scrappy underdog of the prairies.

The actor, whose other credits include Workin’ Moms, Letterkenny, the Fraiser revival and Tiny Pretty Things, spent her formative years in the city before leaving for Toronto for school when she was 18.

“I love talking about Winnipeg; I think it’s a very special city,” says Salgueiro, 38, who grew up in Charleswood and went to St. Mary’s Academy.

“To this day, the funniest people I know are from Winnipeg. Like the people I grew up with. As a millennial growing up pre-having cellphones all the time, we entertained ourselves a lot during the winters. Like me and my friends, the stupid stuff we would get up to, the prank calls and stuff, but we’d also have, like, weird cover bands.

“I felt like we were so creative and always trying to make each other laugh.”

That’s not dissimilar to the energy the cast — which includes Emily Hampshire (Schitt’s Creek), Karen Knox (who is also showrunner) and Emma Hunter (The Beaverton) — and crew brought to Slo Pitch, which premièred on Crave last month with new episodes streaming Fridays.

Salgueiro says working on the show was a joy, which helped quell some of the nerves about this being her first leading role.

“It’s thrilling. I mean, it’s terrifying, too, to have a show — or at least the emotional journey of a show – resting on your character’s shoulders. It’s an honour, but it’s also scary because you don’t want to let people down, and you’re conscious of the importance of that journey,” she says.

There are many things that make Slo Pitch a special show to lead, she says.

“It’s a queer story that’s so joyful, so silly, and I think something we haven’t quite seen before,” she says.

Because it’s a queer-centred sports series from Crave, Slo Pitch — a TV adaptation of the web series of the same name — drew early comparisons to Heated Rivalry when it was announced; there’s even a little HR reference in an early episode.

While they are two very different shows, Salgueiro sees them as companion pieces.

“What Heated Rivalry did is, they’re showing men being vulnerable, emotional, intimate, and those are usually stories that are kind of reserved for women in media. Our show is showing women and queer people being sloppy, messy, raunchy, which is how you see a lot of male characters represented in comedy. There’s interesting gender play,” she says.

Salgueiro has great affection for her character, Joanne, who is trying to dream big for her rag-tag crew while also dealing with the fact her ex (Hampshire) is playing for a rival team.

“She’s a wannabe jock,” Salgueiro says of Joanne.

“We don’t know how good she is necessarily in athletics, but she’s got heart, and that’s what I love about her. She’s not cool. She doesn’t know how to be cool. She’s pretty cringe, in fact, but it’s so pure. Like, this girl can’t hide. It’s so fun to play a character that is not capable of hiding herself.”

She also relished the mockumentary format, as a longtime fan of the genre which lends itself well to telling underdog stories. (The Office — British and American — and the films of Christopher Guest rank high on her list.)

“Having the camera there as a part of the scene, not something you have to ignore, changes the way you tell the story so much. It becomes kind of a confidant to you, and you can say so much with just one look. In the next project I did, I actually caught myself looking into the lens so many times because I was so used to doing it. But it’s such a fun format to work with. I loved it. It’s so conducive to comedy, it’s wild,” she says.

In addition to Slo Pitch, Salgueiro recently wrapped filming on an adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, directed by Sarah Polley — “it was incredible, that’s all I’ll say” — and is working on her own projects, as well as auditioning for other roles.

“The hustle continues, my friend,” she says.

But before we finish our interview, Salgueiro wants to say one more thing about Winnipeg.

“I think because I spent so much of my childhood looking out of a car window at the huge, beautiful sky and the sheet of snow, it was such a fertile place for me to imagine things and to dream. And that still happens when I go back to visit. I’ll be driving somewhere, and I’ll be like, ‘Oh yeah, this is the place where my imagination really gets to expand and play,’” she says.

“It’s something about being there. It’s the nostalgia, but it really is the big blue sky of it.”

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com