Award-winning documentarian Lisa Rideout has always been drawn to stories featuring women who push boundaries. From directing a short-form doc about the owner of Wildside — the longest-running cross-dressing store in Toronto — to transporting the life and career of Canadian sex educator Sue Johanson to the screen, Rideout’s goal has always been to experience the world through her subjects and allow for audiences to do the same.
Her latest effort, Degrassi: Whatever It Takes, is no different. The film, debuting on September 13 at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, dives into the making of the Canadian legacy series, with an emphasis on the woman behind it all. Linda Schuyler was a school teacher who felt inspired to create something that felt truthful to what teens in her classroom were dealing with. And she achieved that in more ways than one.
“I was watching Degrassi as a teenager,” Rideout tells SheDoesTheCity, while specifying that she’s from the generation who watched re-runs of Degrassi Junior High and Degrassi High after the original series came to an end. The filmmaker recalls arriving home from school and picking up her corded phone to call her friends while watching the series. “It was unlike anything that was on television at the time,” she says.
Instead of casting 20-year-olds to play teens, Schuyler and co-creator Kit Hood assembled a cast of Canadian teenagers, most of whom didn’t have acting experience. The first iterations of Degrassi were bare bones, with actors wearing their own clothes on screen and having to divide duties on set after filming.
“We talk about this in the documentary that [the writers] had these practices where they would include the teens in read throughs,” Rideout says. “There was a bit of a feedback loop so they could talk about whether the stories felt authentic to them.”
Degrassi didn’t hold back in discussing topics rarely featured on network TV. Teen pregnancy, abortion, school shootings, interracial relationships, and gender identity were all addressed in the franchise’s run of nearly 40 years, with depictions that resonated with audiences in the 80s, 90s, and the 2000s.
Degrassi: Whatever It Takes taps into some of the shows’ touchpoints, with direct input from cast members. Drake, Shenae Grimes-Beech, Amanda Stepto, and Melinda Shankar are only a few of the alums revisiting their on-set memories, co-star crushes, and their own teenage journeys.
“There are little interludes throughout the film, where everyone talks about their first kiss or their first party, or what sex ed was like for them,” the director says. “The older we get, the less firsts we have in this way. So we wanted to put our viewers back into the mindset of, oh, I remember what I was like being a teen.”
In addition to these interludes, the doc also sees the stars getting candid about what it was like growing up under the public eye. Many open up about their personal struggles with substance abuse and eating disorders, as well as their shared loss. The actors don’t shy away from talking about Neil Hope, known for playing Wheels in the earlier versions of Degrassi, who passed away in 2007.
“People really wanted to talk about Neil, because, like we see in the documentary, his passing was surprising to a lot of people that were close to him, and possibly they didn’t get the closure that they wanted to or weren’t able to memorialize him in the right way,” Rideout says. “He kind of encapsulated the teen actor experience on Degrassi.”
In addition to featuring the showrunners and the actors who made Degrassi the Canadian staple that it is, the doc also includes insight from die-hard fans. Content creator Jocelyn Claybourne, actor Andrew Phung, and filmmaker Kevin Smith all offer their own perspectives on how formative the series was to them.
“Degrassi fans are not like anyone I’ve ever met in my life,” Rideout says. “Without the fan story, there is no franchise. You need to know why those stories resonated with people that were watching the show.”
With the doc premiering at TIFF’s 50th edition, Rideout feels like there is no better place for audiences to watch the film than in the city where the series was set and filmed in. She’s also hopeful that the doc might introduce the series to younger audiences. In an era of streaming, where viewers can easily get acquainted with older TV series, the filmmaker believes that Degrassi is one of those shows that are bound to connect with teenagers today if they were to start binging it now.
“I think if you haven’t watched any of it yet, it really does encapsulate the teen experience throughout decades,” Rideout says. “There are so many characters as well that there’s something for everyone to identify with.”
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