Brooke faces the big questions — murder, technology and Canadian niceness

It’s time to probe two of life’s persistent stereotypes:
A) Older folks have trouble keeping up with modern times; and B) Canadians are really, really nice.
Our guides (via a Zoom interview) are Brooke Shields, 60, and Amalia Williamson, 31. They star in “You’re Killing Me” (shown here), the “cozy mystery” series that streams new episodes Mondays at www.acorn.tv.
“Brooke knows pop culture,” Williamson said. “I could talk to her about the Kardashians or “Love Island” and she, for the most part, knows what I’m talking about. My mother? Not so much.”
But, she said, Shields struggles with tech things, “like tappping your credit card to pay for things. We put a lot of those little moments in the show.”
Such generational blips were one inspiration for the series, Shields said. “As a mother of two daughters who are 20 and 23, this is something I live on a daily basis.” She’s used to being mocked after, for instance, proclaiming: “There will be no vaporizing in this house.”
These quirks were built into the show: Allie (Shields) is a successful crime novelist, suddenly told to ditch her long-running character and write about someone younger. She reluctantly pairs with Andi (Williamson), a would-be writer. They also start solving crimes in Allie’s gorgeous, seaside town.
But what about that other stereotype, about nice folks up North?
“I always joke that when people say all Canadians are nice, they’re not talking about the Canadians in Toronto,” said Williamson. “They’re talking about the East Coast Canadians.”
She’s from suburban Toronto (and does seem really nice), but has spent much of her career working amid Nova Scotia beauty — three-plus years in “Sullivan’s Crossing” and now in “You’re Killing Me.”
That show films in Chester (population 2,400) and other seaside towns.
“Each one was more charming than the other,” Shields said, “and we met the loveliest people. We had the best homemade muffins and soup and people knitted us scarves and gloves.”
No, she’s not going to move there. “I’m a pretty hard-core New Yorker; I’m in the West Village, so it’s pretty hard to take the New York out of me. But I will say that the peace, the air, the kind of homemade-everything” makes it an inviting place to spend four months per year, filming six-episode seasons.
From that New York base, Shields ascended the media world. She was modeling (in Ivory Soap ads) at 11 months, acting at 9. She co-starred in “Pretty Baby” at 12, became an international star in “Blue Laggon” at 15.
And what was Williamson doing at those ages? “I read books,” she said. “And I watched a lot of TV shows and movies.”
Her career plans were wobbly. “I always wanted to be an actor, but I was so painfully shy and afraid of people looking at me …. I was also really naive; I thought I would be discovered on the street.”
She took acting class as a teen, struggling at first. “I was not camera-ready.”
But she did some modeling and studied acting in college. At 25, she played William Baldwin’s daughter in the Canadian series “Northern Rescue.”
Then same “Sullivan’s Crossing” and now “You’re Killing Me” ..,. where she can help Shields solve mysteries, while advising her on tapping credit cards.