From Star Trek to Morningside | Orville Cummings Takes on Dark New Role in Ron Dias’s Latest Ensemble Drama
Toronto Film School alumnus Orville Cummings recently celebrated the world premiere of “Toronto’s next big movie”, Morningside, at the Reelworld Film Festival.
The project, which reunited the Class of 2015 Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre grad with his Bite of a Mango director Ron Dias, explores the lives of seven diverse characters who collide at Scarborough’s Morningside Community Centre as they navigate the challenges of relationships, societal struggles, and the looming threat of gentrification.
“The characters are the driving force of this film, each being distinct and relatable in their own way, and audiences will love that,” said Cummings, who co-stars in the ensemble drama alongside a cast including Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter Fefe Dobson, Kiana Madeira (Fear Street series), Lovell Adams-Gray (Power Book II: Ghost), and Alex Mallari Jr. (Ginny and Georgia), among others.
“One of the biggest characters in this film is the community centre that ties the lives of all the individuals together – a character that helps to highlight the unity, support, and dysfunctions that are ever so prevalent in any given community.”
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Cummings, who’s perhaps best known for playing Lt. William Christopher on Star Trek: Discovery, takes on the far less likeable role of ‘Breeze’ in Morningside – a character the film’s director, Ron Dias, warned him would not be an audience favourite during the casting process.
“When he sat me down and offered me the role, he said, ‘Look man, this role isn’t going to be pretty, you have to go to a dark place,’” he recalled of his first meeting with Dias to discuss the project.
“He trusted me, and I delivered. I wanted Breeze to be a character people will both love to hate and want to see more of.”
And that, he said, was just the response that he got when Morningside marked its world premiere at the Reelworld Film Fest here in Toronto this past October.
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Cummings said he has the “utmost appreciation and respect” for the Reelworld Film Festival for choosing Morningside – a film whose themes reflect the resilience, heritage, and fight to preserve a tight-knit community in the city’s east end – as one of its official 2024 selections.
“The greater Toronto area needs more representation on screen – the bad, the good, the culture, and what’s really happening in our present time. After all, art is a reflection of our reality,” said Cummings.
“I hope this film inspires a lot of other creatives, especially the ones attending TFS, to make art that is authentic, and true to their experience and observation of their world.”
To those aspiring actors-in-training at TFS hoping to follow in his footsteps, Cummings had one piece of advice to impart: “Stay true to yourself in this industry. There are more ‘nos’ than ‘yeses’, but you only need one ‘yes’ – and the most important ‘yes’ is the one from you. Say yes to your goals and ideas!”
Morningside hits theatres on February 21, 2025. Follow the film on Instagram @morningsidefilm
