Jacob Blair

Jacob Blair
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Portrays:	Squad Leader Stuart "Banzai" Bachanal
Date of Birth:	January 26,1984
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month!
Age:	42
Nationality:	CAN
Related Media
		@ BW Media
Official Site (archived)
IMDb profile

Jacob William Blair (born January 26, 1984, in Red Deer, Alberta) is a Canadian actor who portrays Squad Leader Stuart "Banzai" Bachanal in "Razor" and "Razor Flashbacks."

Career

Training and early roles

Blair grew up in Red Deer, Alberta, where he attended Hunting Hills High School and was drawn more to hockey and volleyball than to drama. He graduated from high school in 2002 and enrolled in the commerce program at Red Deer College, having enrolled in drama electives to raise his grade point average before deciding to pursue performing full-time. A friend enrolled in the college's theatre program persuaded him to give acting a try, telling him he could "roll around on the ground and pretend you're a tree" and still pass. He auditioned for the professional theatre training program at Studio 58, the conservatory program at Langara College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and was accepted in the spring of 2004 as one of about 35 students chosen from more than 500 applicants nationwide, graduating in 2007. He initially expected to land stage work after finishing the program, but television and film roles opened up for him instead, beginning with Razor and Aliens in America.

Screen debut and early guest roles

His first credited role came in 2007, as Squad Leader Banzai in the television movie Razor and in two entries of the accompanying web series Razor Flashbacks, including the episode "Operation Raptor Talon." Later that year, he appeared as "Cute Guy" in a single episode of NBC's Bionic Woman, a series also developed by David Eick. That same year, Blair landed what a 2011 profile called his first big break, a recurring role as quarterback Dan Archer across four episodes of the CW comedy Aliens in America (2007-2008). He described the part as a dark inversion of his own athletic background, saying he "was a popular quarterback who was actually an evil antagonist."

Blair continued to build a resume of guest and supporting roles over the following three years, including a single-episode part as "Richard" on The L Word (2008), "Operative #1" in the miniseries The Andromeda Strain (2008), "Soldier #2" in The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), and Trooper Jerry in the Fringe episode "Johari Window" (2010). He also played Cpl. Baras across two episodes of Stargate Universe, "Resurgence" (2010) and "Deliverance" (2011), and had a single-episode role as a lab technician on V (2011).

Christmas in Canaan films

One of Blair's most prominent early opportunities was the Hallmark Channel film Christmas in Canaan (2009), in which he played "Older DJ," the son of a Texas farmer and country singer identified in press coverage as Cyrus, growing up on a farm in the early 1970s. The film centered on DJ's friendship with Rodney, a young African-American boy who becomes part of the family, and drew positive audience response for its message of inclusion after being promoted by Oprah Winfrey. Blair reprised the role of DJ in the sequel Christmas Comes Home to Canaan, which aired on Hallmark Channel in the United States on December 17, 2011, and on Canada's W Network two days later. In the sequel, DJ attempts to run the family farm while his father takes DJ's younger sibling to hospital for treatment. Blair said he would not be surprised if a third installment were eventually made, noting that the first film's sequel had likewise come about unexpectedly.

Film work and Underworld: Awakening

Between 2010 and 2012, Blair took supporting film roles that included Agent Blair in The A-Team and a role as a German skier named Gunnar in Hot Tub Time Machine (2010). The latter part was cut from the theatrical release and appears only among the film's DVD outtakes. He also appeared as Park Ranger in the 2011 thriller Wrecked and had an uncredited part in The Grey (2011) as Cimoski, and in the same period played a supporting role in Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball (2010). Blair has credited his casting in The Grey and The A-Team, both directed by Joe Carnahan and filmed in the Vancouver area, as a turning point that came about after Carnahan responded well to his audition tape, saying he was "very fortunate, incredibly blessed and lucky." In 2012, he played Officer Kolb, a human detective, in Underworld: Awakening, a role that gave him the chance to learn weapon handling for a rookie-cop character caught between vampires and werewolves.

The Pinkertons

In 2014, Blair was cast as William Pinkerton, son of detective agency founder Allan Pinkerton, in the first-run syndicated Canadian series The Pinkertons, filmed in and around Grosse Isle, Manitoba. He was the last principal cast member hired, joining roughly two weeks before filming began and drawing on Allan Pinkerton's memoirs and case files to shape a character the scripts left largely undefined. Blair described the process as building the character from scratch. Speaking to the Calgary Herald from the Winnipeg set, Blair said the writers had deliberately made William an impulsive foil to the analytical detective Kate Warne, comparing the dynamic to the television series Moonlighting. He noted that although the series took dramatic license, it drew on real Pinkerton case files and occasionally worked in historical figures such as Jesse James and Edwin Booth, brother of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. The series ran for one season of 22 episodes, airing on CHCH in Canada beginning January 2015 before reaching UKTV's Drama channel and Netflix.

Blair and his wife relocated from [[w:Toronto|Toronto** to Winnipeg for the production, which shot on a schedule running from August 25, 2014, to March 19, 2015. He said the day-to-day workload exceeded any recurring television role he had held before, contrasting the sustained daily demands of The Pinkertons with the occasional heavier-dialogue day he was used to from past guest and recurring parts. Blair credited local production designer Réjean Labrie with converting a community centre in Grosse Isle into a period-accurate saloon set for the series. Having grown up playing hockey through Alberta's cold winters, Blair was unfazed by warnings from Manitoba crew members about the weather, saying his "investment in a goose-down-filled jacket was well worth it."

Later career

After relocating to Toronto, Blair took guest roles on several Canadian series, including Suits (2013), Beauty and the Beast (2014), Republic of Doyle (2014), and Rookie Blue (2014). He subsequently appeared as Benjamin Graves in two episodes of the miniseries Houdini & Doyle (2016), played Jeremy Bloom in the Aaron Sorkin film Molly's Game (2017), and had a recurring role as Const. Pete Bell on Coroner (2019). He also played Hank Potter in the 2019 war film Midway.

Blair has become a regular presence in television movies for the Hallmark networks, portraying Daniel opposite Katie Leclerc in Beverly Lewis' The Reckoning (2015). He continued taking similar television-movie roles through the following decade, including Christmas Next Door (2017) and Grounded for Christmas (2019). More recently, he played Blake Lassiter in the 2023 film Champions. In 2024, he worked with Winnipeg production company Black Watch Entertainment on the thriller Match, Meet, Murder (2025), with producer Meghan Duffy naming Blair among the Winnipeg-based cast members who stood out in the production.

Personal life

Blair currently resides in Toronto, Ontario. His parents are Warren and Deborah Blair, the latter a daughter of the late Frank McCamus of Red Deer. Early in his career, Blair performed in community theatre in the Squamish, British Columbia area, appearing opposite Lindsey Agnell in the one-act play Window Gazing at the Brackendale Art Gallery, on a double bill that also featured Trisha Cundy, his eventual fiancée, in the companion piece Ladies in Waiting. As of February 2011, Blair was engaged to Cundy, whom he married later that year.

Sources differ on his age when his family relocated from Ponoka, Alberta, to Red Deer, variously citing four years old and five years old.

References