Mother and Child Reunion (Degrassi: The Next Generation) - Cast

Cast

"I was happy to hand the torch off to the new cast back in 2001. The old characters were originally going to be there for the one episode. I was very envious during the reunion special because I knew what was ahead for the new cast. I was looking at them, seeing myself, and thinking 'They're so green, they're so wide-eyed, and darn, I'm not going to be part of that'."

Producers were able to bring back a number of actors from Degrassi High to guest star as their characters for the reunion storyline. Stefan Brogren, Pat Mastroianni, Stacie Mistysyn and Amanda Stepto agreed early on to return for the episode to play their characters Archie "Snake" Simpson, Joey Jeremiah, Caitlin Ryan and Christine "Spike" Nelson respectively, and appeared at the CTV press conference in June to publicize the new series. Brogren and Stepto signed contracts to appear in the entire season. Dan Woods also returned to play Dan Raditch, now principal of Degrassi Community School. By the time "Mother and Child Reunion" began to shoot, twelve more former Degrassi High cast members had agreed to appear: Danah Jean Brown (Trish Skye), Darrin Brown (Dwayne Myers), Michael Carry (Simon Dexter), Irene Courakos (Alexa Pappadopoulos), Chrissa Erodotou (Diana Economopoulos), Anais Granofsky (Lucy Fernandez), Rebecca Haines (Kathleen Mead), Sara Holmes (Alison Hunter), Neil Hope (Derek "Wheels" Wheeler), Kyra Levy (Maya Goldberg), Cathy Keenan (Liz O'Rourke), and Siluck Saysanasy (Yick Yu) all reprised their roles.

For the new generation of students, the producers chose from six hundred auditionees, all of whom were children in an attempt to provide a group of characters that the target audience of teenagers could relate to, rather than actors in their twenties pretending to be teenagers, something other shows of the same period and target audience such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson's Creek were doing. Miriam McDonald first auditioned in October 2000 to play Emma Nelson, Spike's daughter, and was selected for the role after a callback and three screen tests. Ryan Cooley appeared as J.T. Yorke, Jake Goldsbie as Toby Isaacs, and Cassie Steele as Manny Santos. All signed their contracts just days before appearing at the CTV press conference. Christina Schmidt appeared briefly as Terri McGreggor, and Melissa McIntyre appeared in just one scene as Ashley Kerwin; she had no lines to speak in this episode. Cassie Steele's sister, Alex Steele, made her first appearance as Angela Jeremiah, Joey's six-year-old daughter. She returned with Mastroianni to the series at the beginning of season two to take on more permanent roles.

Film director Kevin Smith, who had been a fan of Degrassi from the early 1990s when he worked at a convenience store in Leonardo, New Jersey, has paid homage to Degrassi by making reference to it in several of his films. For example, he named a Clerks character Caitlin Bree after Caitlin Ryan, his favorite Degrassi character, wrote Shannen Doherty's character Rene wearing a Degrassi jacket throughout his Mallrats film, and had Jason Lee's character in Chasing Amy specifically mention Degrassi Junior High as the television show he would rather be watching, instead of going out. At the press conference for the new series, Schuyler announced that Smith would appear in "Mother and Child Reunion" as Caitlin's boyfriend, but due to scheduling conflicts he was unable to film the role and it was passed on to Don McKellar. Smith and his View Askewniverse sidekick Jason Mewes later guest starred in Degrassi: The Next Generation for three episodes of season four, two episodes of season five, and four episodes of season eight.