Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie, Montreal actor, lands breakout role as smouldering pilot in Sterling Point

Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie was in Montreal with his agent when the self-tape request arrived in May 2025. He had one day to send it. Two days later, they called him to Toronto for a chemistry read with Ella Rubin, who had already been cast as Annie. Less than a week later, showrunner Megan Park told him he had the role of Ellis, a smouldering local floatplane pilot in Sterling Point. He was emotional. He called his dad immediately. The whole process took a week and a half.

"This is the biggest project I've ever been a part of," Whiteduck-Lavoie says. He ended up spending what was supposed to be the best summer of his life—his girlfriend and he had plans to go to New York—in Toronto instead.

Sterling Point, a buzzy teen drama executive-produced by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage (the masterminds behind The O.C. and Gossip Girl), launches on Amazon Prime on August 5. It follows twins Annie and Connor Jacobsen, two wealthy New York teens who discover that their estranged grandfather has bequeathed them a rustic cottage on a private island in the Canadian wilderness. In the show, Muskoka is presented as a secretive private playground for the one-percent—which, Whiteduck-Lavoie notes, it unfortunately is—as well as home to several messy, colourful locals.

Whiteduck-Lavoie is from Montreal and has been acting since he was 14, but until 2021, when he played a swimmer in a short film called Bleach, he'd only acted in French. Getting the self-tape request felt like a turning point. "I was so excited," he says. "But the timeline was super tight."

When he first read the script—the team didn't give him all episodes in advance; they were shooting in chronological order—he wanted more immediately. "After the first one, I wanted to read the episodes right away. I was like, 'Give them to me.'" The writing pulled him in.

It was Whiteduck-Lavoie's first time in Muskoka. It was actually everyone in the cast's first time. "We have similar lakes in Quebec, but Muskoka was totally different with all those million-dollar mansions on the water," he says. "I was floored when I got there. The scenery is insane. It's just peak Canada, you know? I feel like Muskoka is actually the main character of the show. Everything is so beautiful when you're surrounded by trees and lakes."

Showrunner Megan Park is Canadian, and her 2024 film My Old Ass, starring Aubrey Plaza, was also set in Muskoka. The Muskoka connection in Sterling Point is authentic—and as American audiences have discovered through shows like Heated Rivalry and the Summer House Muskoka spin-off, there's a global fascination with Canadian cottage culture right now. Whiteduck-Lavoie is one of the few Canadian actors on the show, navigating a cast largely unfamiliar with Canada. "So you're a Canadian actor on an American show, working with American actors in Canada for the first time," he reflects. "That was a unique experience."

For a Montreal actor who'd spent his career working in French, landing a role on a major American streaming platform—and doing it in English, which had always been his dream—was the kind of break that changes trajectories. Sterling Point launches August 5. All eight episodes are available on the first day.