Karen Knox on how taking multiple jobs defeats rejection

For this week’s MVP, we’re chatting with Karen Knox.

It may seem like writer and actor Karen Knox is enjoying a fateful “right place, right time” moment—but to call it that would erase eight long years of working on her show Slo Pitch. The 10-episode, half-hour series, profiling a less-than-successful softball team, started as a web series before being picked up by Crave, where it debuts this baseball season. Just a few short months ago, a queer Canadian baseball mockumentary was a pretty hard sell, until a little gay hockey romance called Heated Rivalry scored with people around the globe. Now gay Canadian shows are a thing, and Karen Knox—or just Knox, as she prefers to be called—is as surprised as the rest of us. 

In this week’s MVP, we chat with the Canadian actor (and director, creator, show runner, would-be stunt performer) about luck and big breaks, how rejection can be a good thing and the show that’s lighting up lesbian Twitter. 

I should call you Knox, correct?

I much prefer Knox, but my family still calls me Karen. It’s not a sensitive thing, and I really don’t mind; it’s just a preference. There was a certain point in time—summer of 2021, I believe—when the name Karen took on a different meaning and people started calling me Knox. As soon as they did, I was like, “Yeah, this feels right.” But Karen Knox is still my name on all my official paperwork and in the media. 

Knox it is. Are you a big baseball fan, Knox? 

I’ve become more of one as a result of working on this show. And last year, who didn’t bandwagon on the Jays’ road to glory? That was a real heartbreaker. I’m too young to remember the Jays winning the World Series. I’ve never seen them win. 

But winning is not what my show’s about; the Brovaries, the team on Slo Pitch, have lost for six years running. They’re a mostly queer, mostly female, beer league softball team, who are a bunch of slovenly underdogs trying their darndest to win the league. It’s a comedy and a mockumentary. If you like Cool Runnings but in the style of The Office, you’ll like this show. 

You play Boris the German ballplayer, but you’re also the writer and the showrunner. Why is it important to take on different roles?  

The way the industry is going now, it’s really hard to make a living unless you’re doing more than one thing. I’m fortunate to be interested in these different avenues because budgets are shrinking and the number of shows being made is shrinking. Unless you’re the lucky A-list actor who’s working projects back to back, if you want to work in this industry, it’s really helpful to be able to work in different capacities. I direct as well.

Is there anything you haven’t done yet that you want to tackle? 

I’d really love to get into stunt work. Maybe one day I’ll get really good at jumping out of planes and then I’ll become the person that gets hired every time they need someone to jump from a plane. I’m just kidding.

What would you say to somebody that wants to get into television, a notoriously difficult industry in Canada?

I’d say go to parties. In one way or another, every job I’ve ever gotten was because I went to a party. Not directly, though. It’s not like I got the job at the party, but going to parties is where you meet people, talk to them and connect with them. You talk about the movies they like or the script they’re writing or the script you’re writing. Networking can actually be really natural if it’s coming from a place of authenticity. I hate that word, “authenticity,” but it’s true. If you’re open and porous to people who respond to you, you’ll find people who are like-minded.

What about the people that don’t respond well to you? How do you deal with rejection? 

Rejection used to make me upset. Sometimes I didn’t get a gig because I didn’t have the look they wanted or I didn’t have a big enough resume. But how was I supposed to break in if nobody gave me a chance? I trained to be an actor. That’s what I went to school for and what I thought my destiny was. But acting-job rejections pushed me into wanting to write and direct. As soon as I started making my own stuff, all these opportunities started opening up for me. It also takes pressure off of the acting when you’ve got something else cooking that’s yours, that you have control over and that you’re passionate about. 

You were working away on this project for about eight years when Heated Rivalry appeared. How did that change the game?

We started in 2018, with two seasons as a web series. Honestly, Heated Rivalry is the best thing that’s happened to Slo Pitch. We’re so grateful to Jacob Tierney and the entire Heated Rivalry team for making such a banger of a show. It opened up avenues for us to explore in the States, the U.K., Europe and Australia. Now they know what Crave is—“Oh, you have another gay sports show? Tell us about it.” So, it’s been the best free press we ever could have gotten, and we’re really hoping that the lesbians and the queer community come hard for this show. Lesbian Twitter is already abuzz.