Scott Speedman on Florida: ‘a very strange, weird, wonderful place’

Scott Speedman stars in R.J. Decker. Photo by Dana Hawley/Disney

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Scott Speedman, who was born in England and moved to Toronto when he was four, has become a quintessential Florida Man. The actor plays the title character in R.J. Decker, a crime drama set in the southern part of the state and filmed in Fort Lauderdale.

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Decker is a former newspaper photographer and convict who’s now a private investigator. The world around him is … let’s say, colourful. It befits such real-life headlines as “Florida man dressed in red lace bra accused of hiding gun under prosthetic silicone breasts” (Jan. 5, 2026, Fox 13 News).

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Season 2 of R.J. Decker premièred Sept. 15 on CTV and ABC, and episodes stream the next day on Crave. The series was inspired by Carl Hiaasen’s 1987 novel Double Whammy.

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Speedman, who grew up regularly visiting Fort Lauderdale for Christmas, calls Florida “a very strange, weird, wonderful place, and an amazing place to shoot a TV show.” In Episode 7 of the new season, for instance, he had a python wrapped around his neck.

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“You get off the plane there to shoot, and the show really comes alive,” he says. “Like, you walk down the street and people are falling out of bars at 11 a.m., and there are just characters everywhere … You’re not hard-pressed to find stories that R.J. could solve in Florida.”

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When viewers last tuned in, corrupt politician Victor Ochoa (David Zayas) was murdered. Amid the fallout in the show’s season 2 première, police are still investigating the killing. Also, an old prison acquaintance pulls R.J. into a string of bank heists.

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Guest stars in the coming run of episodes include Sasheer Zamata of Saturday Night Live, Joey Graziadei of The Bachelor, and Jenna Johnson and Val Chmerkovskiy of Dancing With the Stars.

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Speedman may have his hands full in Fort Lauderdale for R.J. Decker, but he’s found time to pop up on other shows. In the second season of Netflix’s sports comedy Running Point, released in April, he played the owner of the L.A. Raptors hockey team and a rival/love interest for Isla (Kate Hudson). In Grey’s Anatomy, meanwhile, he’s starred as transplant surgeon Nick Marsh and maintained a recurring status in season 20.

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“Grey’s Anatomy, I’ve been doing for a while, and Running Point is such a well-run TV show,” says Speedman. “And to get to work with someone like Kate Hudson in that romantic-comedy medium that she does pretty much better than anyone right now — I’ve always wanted to work with her in something like that.”

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Speedman’s other noteworthy roles include Lycan-Vampire hybrid Michael Corvin in the Underworld films, Barry (Baz) Blackwell in the crime drama Animal Kingdom, and heartthrob Ben Covington in the coming-of-age show Felicity.

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His acting breakthrough is the stuff of Canadian legend. In 1994, a girlfriend dared him to pay a dollar for airtime on the MuchMusic show Speakers Corner. He did, using the platform to say he wanted to audition for the part of Robin in Batman Forever. Chris O’Donnell ended up playing Robin in the movie, but Speedman nevertheless landed on casting agents’ radars.

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“I had a bad Caesar haircut, hair pushed forward, and I was whispering. I remember that day very clearly, and it changed my life in a lot of different ways,” says Speedman.

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“I remember driving down Queen Street (in Toronto), getting stuck in traffic, being so nervous about doing it, almost talking myself out of it. Once I hit traffic, I double-parked my car, ran over, did it very quickly, and ran back across Queen Street. Then I got back in my car and drove to see my friends.”

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