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But despite occasionally appearing in film and television, Blake was always partial to the theatre, particularly the works of Shakespeare. In 2001, he graduated from the National Theatre School in Montreal and later starred as Simba in the original Canadian production of “The Lion King.”

He was also an inaugural member of the English acting company at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and was in the first graduating class of the Soulpepper Academy in ��ѻ��ý.

“Michael was a student of the craft,” recalled his close friend of three decades, Graham Abbey, a fellow actor at the Stratford Festival.

The pair met in the mid-’90s while working together on a play that toured to schools in northern Ontario, and quickly bonded over their tricky monologues. “We used to play a game where we would try and see if we could find a stranger in the crowd, deliver the monologue to them and see if we could get away with it.”

The friends also shared a love for American football. Blake would often visit Abbey’s apartment, where they would watch from noon until 8 in the evening, while eating sausage pasta. “My poor roommate had to endure us,” Abbey recalled with a chuckle.

The actor Jordin Hall, who regarded Blake as a mentor, remembers him similarly. “We used to watch UFC together and I remember one night, our favourite fighter won spectacularly and we were just jumping, cheering, screaming and embracing each other,” he described.

Backstage, however, Blake was quiet, focused and stoic. His habits at times were unique. While most other performers would wait in the wings of the stage for their entrance, Blake would always appear just before his entrance. “He always put your heart in your throat, but he never missed a cue,” said Abbey. “He would just appear at the last minute. That was his process.”

A voracious learner, Blake would dive deep into research for each of the roles he played. He could offer a cerebral analysis of any play he was working on. But he also strove to sharpen his performances.

In Stratford’s 2022 production of “Richard III,” Hall recalled how Blake, his scene partner, would always remind them that they could do better. “He was never complacent, never getting comfortable and always curious about how we could go deeper,” said Hall.

The theatre was Blake’s life, said Lena Macdonald, his friend of 25 years. But outside of the theatre, he was also a music lover, especially Van Morrison. “He liked anything done well,” said Macdonald.

The same could be said about how he liked his theatre. Blake’s ethos and approach to the art form could be summarized by the inspirational quotes he found from notable artists and shared with his close friends. They were quotes that Blake lived by, said Macdonald, and ones they often discussed.

One of them, from the late American filmmaker Arthur Penn: “The primary challenge of the theatre should not always be getting people to give a s—t about it. The primary challenge should be to produce plays that reach out to people and change their lives. Theatre is not an event, like a hayride or a junior prom — it’s an artistic, emotional experience in which people who have privately worked out their stories share them with a group of people who are, without their knowledge, their friends, their peers, their equals, their partners on a remarkable ride.”