Vancouver talent agency that launched careers of Ryan Reynolds, Carly Pope celebrates 35th anniversary
Back in 1997, Vancouver 's Carly Pope was a high school student who signed up for the school play.
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Pope, who is best known for the TV series Pretty Little Liars, Arrow, Suits and Popular, was cast as the cop in Lord Byng Secondary School's all-female version of Neil Simon's classic comedy The Odd Couple.
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'I'm sure there's a very revealing, you know, VHS tape somewhere of that performance, which I never want to see in my waking life,' said Pope, who is currently living in Brooklyn.
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While Pope didn't necessarily see potential in her early performance, Vancouver talent agent Tyman Stewart did. He approached the adults involved with the play and asked about her. Nearly three decades later, Pope is still one of Stewart's top clients at The Characters Talent Agency Vancouver.
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'If I do some quick math on that, that makes it 28 years. Wow, which, inarguably, makes it my longest relationship,' said Pope with a laugh. 'It happened, I suppose you know, organically in that sense, and as a surprise gift to me … everything started to kind of snowball after that point.'
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That long relationship is just one of many that Stewart, who also helped to launch the careers of Ryan Reynolds and Sarah Chalke, has developed over the years.
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A Hollywood North staple, The Characters Talent Agency Vancouver is celebrating a milestone anniversary this year.
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'While, mathematically, this is The Characters Talent Agency Vancouver's 36th year, we are calling it our 35th year because no one counts the year of COVID, kind of like the 13th floor in an elevator,' said Stewart, who is president of the company that also represents directors, voice-over talent, producers, designers, editors, casting directors and writers.
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The Characters Talent Agency Vancouver currently has 17 agents who handle around 80 clients each.
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Co-founded by Larry Goldhar (who started Characters in Toronto in the late 1960s) and Sam Feldman, the Vancouver office bought out Marie Morton of Morton Talent, one of only four agencies in the city at the time.
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Stewart got hired out of Toronto in July of 1989 and worked his way up the ladder, becoming a partner in 1995, and then the president in 2016, when he replaced Leonard Bonnell. Stewart signed his first client in 1992.
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