“Dream role” brings scams, wigs and fun

Some roles require little acting – a subtle smile, a sly smirk, maybe a pregnant pause.
Then there’s Max, on “Wild Cards,” who does … well, everythinng. “It’s kind of like a dream role,” said Vanessa Morgan (shown here), who plays her.
The show (8 p.m. Wednesdays on CW) has a cop (Giacomo Gianniotto) reluctantly paired with Max. A lifelong con artist, she has a bag of tricks (literally) from which she has produced wigs, pistachios and a grappling hook.
The role and the show are so much fun that we might start to ask: Who is Vanessa Morgan and where has she been until now?
She’s been hiding in plain sight, actually – in a now-departed CW show. In six seasons of “Riverdale,” she was Toni Topaz, first introduced as a gang leader.
“I love Toni, … but this one’s a bit more fun, because there’s so much more depth to her character,” Morgan told the Television Critics Association. “I have a father; I didn’t nave parents in ‘Riverdale.’”
In real life, she has two of them — a mom who’s from Scotland and a dad from Tanzania. She’s never been to either, but she might try Scotland next year and Tanzania some day. “I would absolutely love to maybe climb Mount Kilimanjaro.”
For now, her world has been in Canada (where she was born and now lives) and California, where she was living when she got her career boost.
“When I was 6 years old,” she said, “I started out as a singer …. An agent saw me singing at the Palm Springs Date Festival and was like,’You should get into acting.’”
She did, with quick success. By 8, she was playing the younger version of Vanessa Williams in a “Christmas Carol” take-off; as a teen she was in shows seen only in Canada (“The Latest Buzz”) and ones made for the U.S. — “Finding Carter,” “The Shannara Chronicles,” “My Babysitter is a Vampire” and “Riverdale.”
Then “Wild Cards” was being planned by Michael Konyves, as a variation on the light mysteries – blue skies, cute people, clever scams – that used to be big in the U.S. “I missed the blue sky,” he said. “I missed ‘Moonlighting,” I missed ‘Castle.’”
This was planed as a Canada-only show. “When it came to casting, there wasn’t budget” to get known stars, said CW President Brad Schwartz. His network jumped in and added some money; the casting expanded.
The cop role went to Giacomo Gianniotti, who was born in Italy and grew up in Canada. He got acting roles there, in the U.S. (Dr. DeLuca in “Grey’s Anatomy”) and in Italy. “I’ve been very lucky to work there – in Italian, my native language,” he said.
Max took longer to cast, Konyves said. “The character has to be able to do accents and to be in disguise and yet (do fast dialog). ‘Wild Cards’ is very talky.”
Morgan was finishing work on “Riverdale” when she landed the role. Now she’s playing someone who overflows with schemes and optimism, someone who’s easy to envy..
“I second-guess myself way more than Max does,” Morgan said. “She’s like the more confident, alter-ego version of me.”