Backstage Photos of Casey and Derek from “Life with Derek”

Canadian-born actor Casey Sander was pursuing his career in films and TV shows when he landed the starring role of Derek Venturi on ABC’s Life With Derek. The show’s premise involved a blended family — Casey played the father and stepfather to four kids — and was based loosely on his own family: he has two sons with his wife, Francine Racette. Halfway through season 1, however, Casey had to leave for an extended period for work commitments outside the country. But now that he’s back in Toronto shooting films (including one soon), I caught up with him to find out what it’s like being reunited with Derek after 10 years apart.

Introduction to The Life with Luca

This movie is a film about a girl named Isabella. She is an Italian girl from an upper-class family and she’s just had her first kiss. Her family pressures her that she has to start attending school classes at the academy, which is across the street from their home in Rome, Italy. At first, Isabella keeps this secret from all of her friends until she feels pressured to come out during a dance when all her friends are watching on the internet. After coming out on the internet, Isabella wants to live as who she really is but also wants to keep it private and not tell everybody because then they will know what happened at school and what could happen at home.

Characters of The Life with Luca

Jacob Tremblay as Luca Paguro
Jack Dylan Grazer as Alberto Scorfano
Emma Berman as Giulia Marcovaldo
Saverio Raimondo as Ercole Visconti
Maya Rudolph as Daniela Paguro
Marco Barricelli as Massimo Marcovaldo
Jim Gaffigan as Lorenzo Paguro
Peter Sohn as Ciccio

Story of The Life with Luca

The Life with Luca is a slightly-accurate biopic about Luciano Pavarotti’s life in general and his relationship with his daughter from his first marriage, who eventually turned into an opera superstar herself… but not before hating her dad’s guts and poverty.

But the United States has only recently begun to see it. In this country, Luciano Pavarotti is a household name and the heartthrob of millions of Italian-American children who have never even heard of the late 20th-century pop star whose name they know, but don’t recognize as the same artist who’s known as “Pavarotti.” Luca’s daughter, Nicoletta “Nicole” Pavarotti is no less famous than her famous father and in The Life with Luca, she takes on a major role as herself.

Titles from the Pixar Canon that would make great series on Disney+

The acquisition of Pixar by Disney has been a great thing for all involved. The company that brought us such classics as Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and WALL-E now belongs to the House of Mouse. However, it doesn’t mean that more of these films don’t deserve their chance at continuing under the Pixar banner.

It’s one thing to revive a franchise, like Star Wars or James Bond, that’s based on a series of novels or other works of long-form fiction. It’s another to reboot something that was designed as a standalone story: You only get one chance to make your point. (This is also true of books or any other form of serialized fiction.) Yet for some movies, there’s room for more.

So, what do think about The Life with Luca?