Kat Harlton
Photos: Provided via artist / Poster: Bell Fibe TV1
Actress Martina Kelades stars as Veruca James in the new Bell Fibe TV1 original series Things Like These, a dark comedy that blends absurdist humour with an honest and emotional exploration of grief, family, and resilience.
Things Like These follows the James family as they struggle to move forward after profound loss. At the heart of the story is Veruca, a widowed single mother doing everything she can to hold her family together while quietly carrying the weight of her own unresolved grief. Raised in an environment where difficult emotions were rarely discussed, Veruca finds herself caught between protecting her children and confronting the pain that has shaped their lives.
Through its unique mix of comedy and heartbreak, Things Like These explores themes of mental health, generational trauma, and the importance of breaking cycles of silence within families. As the series unfolds over the course of a season, viewers witness the James family grapple with love, loss, and the complicated journey toward healing.
We recently had the opportunity to speak with Martina Kelades about bringing Veruca to life, the emotional depth of the series, what drew her to the role, and what audiences can expect from this unforgettable family story.
Kat: Veruca is trying to keep her family together while carrying unresolved grief of her own. What was the biggest challenge in portraying someone who’s holding everything in instead of letting it out?
Martina: I am very familiar with the survival instinct of keeping things together on the outside when things are falling apart on the inside. I think a lot of us get really good at functioning in our day-to-day, showing up, taking care of everyone else, while silently carrying things we haven’t fully dealt with ourselves. Veruca felt very familiar in that way. The challenge wasn’t trying to show what she was feeling, but it was trying not to. It was trusting that everything she was holding back could still tell the story, even in the silence. Sometimes the most heartbreaking thing isn’t when someone falls apart; it’s watching how hard they’re working not to.
Playing Veruca meant living in that space while also navigating some of my own challenges and experiences at the same time, which I think is something most artists are doing in one way or another. There was something vulnerable about that overlap. It made the work feel genuinely personal, and I wanted to honour that experience in a way that felt meaningful, grounded and human.
Kat: The series balances dark comedy with heavy themes like loss, trauma, and mental health. How did that blend of humour and heartbreak influence your performance?
Martina: Working on this series was a beautiful reminder that joy and sorrow can exist at the same time. We often convince ourselves that we have to be in one emotional state or the other, but that’s rarely how life unfolds. Some of the heaviest grief can exist alongside laughter, and sometimes laughter is the very thing that gets us through it. I didn’t approach the comedy as something separate from heartbreak. For me, they were always woven together in the story. I tried to hold that duality while playing Veruca—to allow her moments of humour, warmth and connection to exist without diminishing the weight she was carrying. I believe that’s what makes these characters, and all of us, feel so human. We’re beautifully contradictory. We can be grieving and grateful, broken and hopeful, laughing while our hearts are aching. None of us are just one thing.
Kat: One of the show’s central ideas is the silence that can exist around grief, particularly within some Black families. What conversations do you hope the series encourages after people finish watching?
Martina: I pray it creates space for conversations that might otherwise feel too difficult to have. Grief doesn’t always look the way we expect it to, and so often we carry it quietly—and sometimes with shame—because we don’t know how to talk about it, or we’ve never been shown that we can. While every family and community is different, I think many people will recognize the ways silence can become a form of survival, and how those patterns can be carried forward as their own kind of generational inheritance of grief.
What I love about this series is that it doesn’t offer easy answers. It encourages us to witness people doing the best they can with what they’re carrying. If someone finishes watching and feels a little more understood, reaches out to someone they’ve been thinking about, or gives themselves permission to speak about something they’ve kept buried, I think that is profoundly meaningful. Stories can’t erase grief, but they can remind us that we don’t have to carry it alone.
Kat: Veruca believes that if she just keeps going, eventually everything will work itself out. Do you think audiences will sympathize with that instinct, even when they can see it’s hurting her family?
Martina: I think audiences will recognize Veruca’s instinct because, in many ways, it comes from a place of love. She believes that if she can just keep moving, keep everyone together, and keep things from falling apart, eventually they’ll find their way through it. I think many of us can relate to that feeling—the belief that if we can just hold on a little longer, keep showing up, and keep going, things will somehow get easier.
The challenge is that sometimes the very things we do to survive can also prevent healing. That has been true in my own experience, and it was something I connected with while embodying Veruca. Veruca’s strength is also the thing that isolates her. She’s so focused on protecting the people around her that she doesn’t allow herself to be seen or supported. She’s not trying to hurt anyone; she’s trying to love them the only way she knows how. What I’ve come to understand is that part of love is also allowing ourselves to be vulnerable—to ask for help, to let ourselves be held, and to trust that we don’t have to carry every burden alone.
Kat: Things Like These uses absurdist moments to explore very real emotional struggles. Why do you think surreal or unconventional storytelling can sometimes communicate grief more effectively than straightforward drama?
Martina: I think grief itself can often feel surreal. It’s an experience that doesn’t always follow logic or move in a straight line. There are moments when the world around you continues as normal, while internally you’re carrying something that feels impossible to articulate. The absurdist moments in Things Like These allow us to express that emotional reality in a way that a more straightforward approach sometimes can’t. They create space for the contradictions of being human—the moments that feel strange, uncomfortable, funny, and heartbreaking all at once. In many ways, that’s what grief can feel like: a collection of emotions that don’t always make sense together, but somehow coexist. Things Like These is a series that embraces that and gives audiences permission to experience grief in all of its complexity.
Kat: As an actor, how do you prepare for scenes that deal with prolonged grief without allowing those emotions to overwhelm you off camera?
Martina: The first thing is honouring the emotions rather than trying to push them away. Grief is such a significant human experience, and portraying it truthfully requires allowing yourself to be open to it.
At the same time, it’s important to create a container for the work—to be fully present with Veruca’s pain while also remembering that it belongs to her story. It’s equally important to have practices of care that allow you to come back to yourself. For me, that meant making space for reflection, leaning into my faith, and intentionally checking in with myself and those around me throughout the process.
The support and trust within our creative team was also essential. Having open conversations with the writer and creator, Nikki Martin, our director, Tobi Martin-Fleming, my fellow cast members, and the entire team created a space where we could hold the weight of these stories together. Rather than carrying those emotions alone, we created a shared language of care, trust, and understanding around the work. Preparation is ultimately about building trust—with the character and with myself. It’s about knowing when to go deeper, but also knowing how to return to my own life at the end of the day. There were moments where Veruca’s grief felt very close to home, and that’s part of the privilege of this work: being able to explore something personal while still holding the story and the character with care.
Kat: The James family is deeply connected but also deeply fractured. How did the cast build that sense of history and complicated love between the characters?
Martina: As a cast, we spent a lot of time getting curious about the James family—who they were before the story began, what they had been through together, and what they weren’t saying out loud. Before filming, we had conversations about the history between these characters and the things that shaped their relationships. That continued on set through little discoveries, conversations, and moments of asking each other, “Why do they respond this way?” or “What are they really trying to say here?” The complexity of the James family comes from the fact that the love is real. The fractures don’t exist because they don’t care; they exist because they care so much, but they’re also carrying their own histories, grief, and ways of protecting themselves. Finding that balance between tenderness and hurt is what made their relationships feel so human.
Kat: Veruca’s avoidance comes from the way she was raised. Did playing her make you think differently about the ways families pass down emotional habits across generations?
Martina: Playing Veruca definitely made me reflect on the ways we inherit not only our family stories, but also our ways of coping. So much of what we carry is learned—how we express love, how we handle pain, what we allow ourselves to feel, and what we learn to keep quiet. I don’t think these patterns are passed down because people don’t care. Often, they come from a place of survival.
People do the best they can with the tools they were given, and sometimes those tools are shaped by their own experiences, their own wounds, and what they were taught about strength.
What I found most moving about Veruca is that her avoidance comes from a desire to protect. She learned that holding things together was a way of loving her family. But part of her journey is recognizing that love can also look like honesty, surrender, vulnerability, and allowing others to be there for you. It reminded me that understanding where our patterns come from can be the first step toward changing them.
Kat: The show asks what healing looks like after unimaginable loss, but it doesn’t seem to offer easy answers. What did you personally take away from Veruca’s journey?
Martina: Healing doesn’t mean forgetting. It doesn’t mean that the loss becomes less significant or that we stop missing what we’ve lost. It means learning how to carry that love and that grief in a way that allows us to keep living, keep connecting, and continue making room for joy, hope, and new possibilities. Veruca carries so much responsibility because she believes that holding everything together is what keeps her family safe.
What moved me most about her journey is the realization that healing also requires surrender—the courage to acknowledge what hurts, to allow yourself to be seen, and to trust that you don’t have to carry everything alone.
My faith has been an important part of understanding that healing is not always about having all the answers. Sometimes it’s about trusting through uncertainty, finding meaning in the midst of pain, and believing that loss does not have the final word. Grief changes us; it becomes part of our story. But it doesn’t have to take away our ability to love, to connect, or to experience joy again.
Kat: If viewers come to Things Like These expecting only a dark comedy, what aspect of the series do you think will surprise them the most once they experience the full story?
Martina: I think what might surprise viewers most is just how much heart exists within the story. The humour is such an important part of the series, but it’s also a doorway into something much more profound. Beneath the absurdity and the laughter are stories about grief, love, family, and the ways we try to survive the things that change us.
What I love about Things Like These is that it doesn’t ask us to choose between humour and heartbreak. It allows both to exist at the same time, because that’s often how life feels. The moments that make us laugh can exist alongside moments that break our hearts. This series embraces that complexity and welcomes audiences to see these characters not just through what they’re going through, but through their humanity.
I hope viewers are surprised by how much they recognize themselves in these characters—their flaws, their fears, their love, and their longing to be understood. Ultimately, beneath the comedy is a human story about love, connection, healing, and the ways we find our way back to one another.
Connect With Martina On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martinakelades