It was beautiful.'īut directing wasn't the only challenge. 'We're making this show up on all these super rich people and we wouldn't spend 250 bucks,' he says. But incredulity still rings fresh in his voice.

Can't do it.'…'Okay, so how many candles can I have?' 'Five.' '

Can't do it.' 'Guys, we're the number two show on the network! You can't bring the-' 'Nope. No.' 'Why can't I do that?' 'We'd have to bring the fire marshal in.' 'Well how much'd that cost?' '250 bucks.' 'So bring the fire marshal in!' 'Nope. 'I would want to have a bunch of candles in a scene. But it wasn't easy, considering their tight(ass) budget. He cut his teeth helming episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210. And rightly so, since he's at the ski resort for the Western Canadian premiere of his directorial debut, Cas & Dylan, starring Richard Dreyfuss and Tatiana Maslany. Priestley is animated, gregarious, and upbeat. They would, like, bring in food for us from the crappy restaurant down the road because they didn't want to pay for a caterer. They didn't even want to pay for us to have a caterer. Like literally, we cheaped out on everything. Because I was on the show and I was in the show, and I knew how ghetto the show was. 'Looking back on it, I didn't understand what all the hoopla was about, to be perfectly honest…. 'That whole experience was pretty crazy,' Priestley says in a Whistler hotel room during the Whistler Film Festival. Thanks to swooning teenage girls (and undoubtedly some guys too), Priestley became a household name.īut from the inside looking out, the view was different. (Yes, true Beliebers, there was life before the Internet.) The TV series Beverly Hills, 90210 graced the small screen on Octoand became an international hit show. Jason Priestley found himself at the eye of a teen-idol perfect storm, in the days before the existence of social media, no less. While Brandon wasn't a vampire (then again, anything is possible now that we have fanfic), many Twihards may not realize that one of the precursors to the Edward Cullen/Robert Pattinson teen Twi-rking phenomenon can be credited to a local actor. Um, who-depending on your generation-you might ask? Before Edward Cullen, there was…Brandon Walsh.

Jason priestley beverly hills