Colin Cunningham, the veteran character actor who plays the fifth-century warlord Vortigern in Daily Wire’s The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin, has been nominated for Best Lead Performance in a Dramatic Series at the Leo Awards, British Columbia’s annual film and television honors. The conservative media company is treating the nod as a rare crack in an industry it says shuts its work out, and series creator Jeremy Boreing called the recognition “deeply gratifying” in a statement.
Strip away the culture-war packaging, though, and the picture shifts. The Leo Awards are a regional craft program run out of Vancouver, where Cunningham has worked for three decades and already holds a long shelf of nominations. This is closer to a hometown guild honoring a hometown veteran than to Hollywood breaking ranks.
What the Leo Awards Recognize
The Leo Awards were founded in 1999 by the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Foundation of British Columbia to spotlight producers, writers, directors, performers and crew working in the province. They are decided by industry peers, not by a national academy or by Hollywood’s studio establishment, and eligibility hinges on a production’s British Columbia roots rather than its politics or its distributor.
That scope matters for reading this nomination correctly. Vancouver is one of North America’s busiest production hubs, and the Leos function as the local industry’s self-celebration across some three dozen categories, from cinematography and sound design to lead and supporting performances.
- 1999 founding year, with the ceremony held each May or June in Vancouver.
- 35-plus distinct categories spanning motion pictures, television movies, dramatic series, documentaries and animation.
- Peer-judged by working British Columbia film and television professionals, the people Cunningham shares sets and trailers with.
For the full field, the organizers publish British Columbia’s annual film and television awards roster online each spring.
Colin Cunningham’s Long Run in Vancouver Television
Cunningham, born in Los Angeles in 1966, built his career in Canadian production and studied directing at Vancouver Film School. He is best known to genre audiences as John Pope, the volatile outlaw he played in 47 of 52 episodes of TNT’s science fiction drama Falling Skies, and as Major Paul Davis across Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.
His resume reads like a map of the British Columbia television industry rather than a Hollywood A-list. That history is the context the “shocking” framing leaves out, because the Leo Awards have been recognizing him for years.
- Det. Brian Curtis, the corrupt cop in Da Vinci’s Inquest and its sequel Da Vinci’s City Hall, a Vancouver-shot staple.
- Julian Slink, the flamboyant ringmaster across all 13 episodes of Syfy’s Blood Drive.
- Writer, director and star of the 2007 short film Centigrade, which won a Kick Start Award and was shortlisted in the Academy’s short-film process.
By the count cited around this announcement, the Vortigern nod adds to roughly 11 Leo Award acting nominations and three wins over his career. A performer with that record landing on the ballot again is a continuation, not an upset.
Inside The Pendragon Cycle
The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin premiered on DailyWire+ on January 22, 2026, a seven-episode first season adapting Stephen R. Lawhead’s novels Taliesin (1987) and Merlin (1988). The retelling of Arthurian legend, set in post-Roman Britain, blends action, faith and magic, with Tom Sharp as Merlin, Rose Reid as Charis, James Arden as Taliesin, Brett Cooper as Ganieda and Cunningham as the menacing Vortigern.
Boreing, who co-founded The Daily Wire in 2015 with Ben Shapiro and later served as co-CEO, put the budget at seven figures per episode, or roughly $1 million per episode and eight figures for the season, which he framed as the most lavish production in the company’s history. That is still a fraction of the tens of millions per episode that streamers pour into flagship fantasy, yet the show drew praise for punching above its weight on screen. Daily Wire’s grittier take on faith-driven television has been one of the platform’s more ambitious swings.
Reception split along familiar lines. The series posted strong audience numbers even as some viewers balked at subscribing to DailyWire+ over its politics, and critics divided over its decision to compress multiple novels into one season. The show is available to stream on the DailyWire+ platform.
Regional Craft Award, National-Style Spotlight
The gap between what the Leo Awards are and how the nomination is being marketed comes into focus when you line them up against the awards most readers picture when they hear “industry recognition.” The Leos sit in a different tier of the ecosystem, regional and peer-driven, where local productions compete against local productions.
| Award | Organizer | Eligibility | Founded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leo Awards | Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Foundation of B.C. | British Columbia productions | 1999 |
| Primetime Emmy Awards | Television Academy | U.S. national primetime TV | 1949 |
| Canadian Screen Awards | Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television | Canadian film and television | 2013 |
None of that makes the Vortigern nomination hollow. It means the recognition comes from the corner of the business where Cunningham has always been judged, which is exactly why a 30-year fixture appearing on the ballot is unremarkable on its own terms.
The Blacklist Narrative Daily Wire Is Selling
The company has leaned into a broader argument about conservative artists being frozen out. Matt Walsh ran a tongue-in-cheek Oscar push for 2024’s Am I Racist?, a documentary needling diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI, the corporate hiring and culture frameworks the film targets), knowing the Academy would never bite. Author and podcaster Andrew Klavan has predicted his right-leaning views would cost him literary prizes he once won.
Against that backdrop, any nomination becomes ammunition. Boreing’s statement framed Cunningham’s performance as both deserving and, implicitly, hard-won in a hostile field.
We set out to tell a story told with real ambition and genuine care, and to see it recognized is deeply gratifying. Colin Cunningham brought to Vortigern a gravity and a grief that anchor the entire series, and he deserves this honor and many more.
That was Boreing, the show’s creator and executive producer, in a statement on the nomination. The praise for the performance is fair on its face, and the series did earn a strong audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The leap from a peer nod in Vancouver to evidence that the wider industry is thawing is where the framing outruns the facts.
Where the Shock Holds Up and Where It Fades
There is a real point buried under the spin. Conservative-coded projects rarely surface at the major national ceremonies, and the reluctance of musicians and actors to attach their names to politically charged events is a documented pattern in the current climate.
But the Leo Awards are not that arena. They reward the technical and performing talent of a single province, and they have a track record of putting Cunningham forward long before he played Vortigern. Reading a regional craft nomination as a national verdict mistakes the scoreboard for the league.
When the envelopes open in Vancouver this summer, Cunningham will be judged the same way he has been for thirty years, by the people he works alongside rather than the ones who decide the Oscars.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Leo Awards?
The Leo Awards are British Columbia’s film and television honors, founded in 1999 by the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Foundation of British Columbia. They are peer-judged across roughly 35 categories and recognize productions with roots in the province, with a ceremony held in Vancouver each May or June.
Who is Colin Cunningham?
Cunningham is a Los Angeles-born, Vancouver-based character actor known for John Pope in Falling Skies, Major Paul Davis in the Stargate franchise and Det. Brian Curtis in Da Vinci’s Inquest. He plays Vortigern in The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin and has multiple prior Leo Award nominations and wins.
Where can I watch The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin?
The seven-episode first season streams exclusively on DailyWire+, the subscription platform from The Daily Wire. It premiered on January 22, 2026.
What is The Pendragon Cycle based on?
The series adapts Stephen R. Lawhead’s fantasy novels, drawing primarily on the first two books in his Pendragon Cycle, Taliesin (1987) and Merlin (1988), a retelling of Arthurian legend set in post-Roman Britain.
