Steven McCarthy is an acclaimed actor, director, and musician. A graduate of The National theatre school of Canada's prestigious acting programme, he returned to the school in 2010 as the sole candidate selected for a unique, one-year directing intensive. Since then productions such as Bliss, Malaria Lullaby, and Boblo, which combined elements of circus, dance, trapeze, and rock and roll, have earned him acclaim across the country. In film and television he has played a wide variety of leading roles for such directors as Guillermo del Toro, Ken Finkelman, Kate Melville and Robert Harmon in productions as diverse as The Strain, HBO Canada's Good God, the indie hit Picture Day, and A&E's The Crossing. The ElastoCitizens, McCarthy's epic ten-piece funk band, are cult favourites on the Toronto indie music scene. As one of the stars of The Steps, an ensemble comedy that premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2015, McCarthy shares the screen with Christine Lahti, James Brolin, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Jason Ritter. "o negative", which he wrote, directed, performs in and produced, is his first film. It was named one of the top ten short films of the year in 2015 by TIFF.