canadian actor articles, part 1

[schmerica]

As I've mentioned, Fox and I have done nothing but talk about Canadian actors for the past weekend. This post and the next one are just going to be a ton of article transcripts we've found really interesting, and maybe a couple of links. If this is useful to you, AWESOME. Write us some fic!

And of course, interesting links or more articles or just useful facts and trivia about everybody = always welcome! (Especially if you have Sandra Oh's issue of BUST from last year, because ... dude.)

Callum Keith Rennie's Adventures In Ashcroft

It’s possible that Callum Keith Rennie is Canada’s busiest actor. In the last ten years he has co-starred in the series Due South and My Life As a Dog, appeared in more than a dozen other series and in almost 40 features and movies of the week. In the following diary, he talks about his most recent film, Keith Behrman’s Flower & Garnet, the story of ten year-old boy whose mother died during his birth. Rennie plays the father, Ed, who is forced to reconcile with his son when he withdraws into the countryside. The film also stars Colin Roberts as Garnet and Jane MacGregor as his sister, Flower.

February 2001 John Buchan (the Toronto casting director) sends Liz Hodgson, my manager, the script for Flower & Garnet while I’m working on Slapshot 2. Their money isn’t set, so I’m not in a rush to read it. Liz reads it and loves it. I read part of it and push it aside. What’s a flower and garnet?

May 2001 My manager’s enthusiasm causes me to reconsider and I read the script with fervor. Enjoy. Think I’m too old for Garnet. He’s eight in the script. I think I can play ten if I shave. I’m struck by the structure of the piece. It’s very sophisticated and well crafted. I tell Liz that I’m interested.

July Keith Behrman, the director/writer and I meet in a West End coffee shop. He looks like Jesus. We talk for a long time, but not about the movie. Our conversation has very little to do with him being a director and me being an actor. I drink four cups of coffee and keep my hat on the whole time. My hair has been dyed blonde for my role as a sociopath hair collector in Dice. I figure if I take my hat off, he’ll never believe I can play a father. I tell him I want to be in the film. He says he doesn’t know what is going on. I can’t figure him out. I leave the meeting thinking Keith is an interesting person who is going to make an interesting film.

August “They want to have a meeting with you,” my manager says.
I say, ”What do you mean a meeting?”
“A meeting,” she replies.
Then I start to rant to myself, “Do you mean a meeting or a reading? Am I in LA or Vancouver?”
“A meeting.”
“A meeting and I’m reading? So it’s an audition. I’ve been in this business forty years. Don’t they know who I think I am? And I’m getting scale?”
Pause.
“Yeah, okay.”

September 4 Accidentally, I’m at a party of Lynne Stopkewich’s and run into Flower and Garnet’s producer, Trish Dolman. I feel uncomfortable, then leave with a girl I barely know.
September 11 World crisis creates a desire to work on more life affirming projects.
September 25 I’m scheduled to read for the producer and director. I don’t have enough time to prepare, so I think I’ll fool them with snappy pants and sensible shoes. Beforehand, I’m a bit anxious, so I smoke outside on the stairwell. A guy yells, “I guess this sign about not smoking on the stairwell applies to everyone else in the f***ing world, but you.”
I get a good feeling about the meeting.
We work some of the scenes. Keith directs me and I don’t understand what it is he wants from me. I think to myself, “What would Bruce Greenwood do in a situation like this?”
I leave having no idea if what I did was right or not, or what he did was right or not.

October 1 I fool them with my talent, but conflicts arise as the producer and director try to decide whether to shoot now or in the spring. I get more offers for work.
Costa Rica = warm weather, golf, more money.
Flower & Garnet is being shot in Ashcroft, BC.
Ashcroft = cold weather, no golf, little money, hard work.
Ashcroft. Ashcroft. Ashcroft.
November 4 Get possession of a loft prior to show starting. Note to self – Never buy a place right before a show. Keith tells me, “You can’t really prepare to work on my films.” I say ‘ok’ and go hit a bucket of balls at the driving range. Note to self: Never listen to the director.

November 8 Read-through. Meet Colin Roberts for the first time. He blows his face onto the glass windows of the production office. Seems perfect. Meet Jane MacGregor. She seems perfect as my daughter.

November 12 On the day before production begins, I drive to Ashcroft with my dog, but without a map. I take the Coquihalla; there is a sign the size of a postage stamp that says “Ashcroft.” Check into hotel. The room is very small. The carpet is suspect. I ask myself, “What am I doing here?” Oh yeah, I signed up for this. Note to self: Never touch the carpet.

November 13 I try to put myself in the mood for the funeral scene, but a wind comes up off the lake and blows my soul right out of my body. I spend the rest of the show trying to get it back.

November 14 Seeing as I’ve only had the final schedule three days prior to shooting, I think I’m lucky that I don’t have an emotional scene off the top. Wait, on day two I have to go from laughing to crying in the same scene? In a gravel pit with a gun? Phil Granger plays my best friend, Fred. He makes me laugh. I have to deal with the crying part on my own. I haven’t found a working dialogue with Keith yet, at least that I understand in human terms.
The dog likes the hotel.

November 15 My cel phone doesn’t work.

November 16 The first week moves fast. Very ambitious boat sequence. I keep acting to a minimum whilst trying not to capsize camera into lake. Keith is great with Colin. Not exactly sure what I’m doing yet. Am I doing too much? Am I doing too little? Where is divine intervention when you need it?

November 19 Keith has described his films as “pointillist pieces where it’s all made up of small bits.” That’s what week two is for me. None of my sequences are longer than 3/8 of a page. Still caught in good day, bad day. Some scenes are par, some are bogies. Note to self: Try to be scratch golfer.

November 20 Still haven’t found what I’m looking for. But you can’t always get what you want. I think I need some new CDs. Everyone is very supportive.

November 21 The press machine has started up and they want to talk to me. It’s always distracting to talk to people while you’re working. They interview hockey players after the game.

November 22 My cel phone still doesn’t seem to be working. Keith is directing me like an eight-year old. I think he’s gotten my name confused with Colin. I like it.

November 23 I have paranoid thoughts that everything is a trick to put myself in the mind of Ed. Everyone is a conspirator. I consider therapy.

November 25 Options: Should I spend the weekend in Ashcroft or drive to Vancouver where it’s raining like the clickhammers of hell?

November 28 There seems to be something wrong with my trailer. Either the power is off or the heat isn’t working. Sometimes both. It’s very cold. As far as the film goes, I’m getting into it. Keith demands a certain honesty and reality. Simplicity. I peel my onion.

November 29 Well-oiled machine. I settle and start to have fun. I think Keith is one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. I think Trish Dolman is one of the best producers I’ve ever worked with. I wonder what she’s going to do about my trailer. I start asking the other actors about their trailers.

November 30 I can’t make art with the fillings rattling out of my head.
Scene 77: We’re supposed to shoot an outdoor birthday party, a barbecue. It’s snowing, but not gently. It’s windy and blowing. We shoot anyhow. The burgers are frozen. The drinks are thick. My hotel is filled with local miscreants. Every Thursday my hotel is turned into the town’s courthouse. The police say hello; they recognize me from the numerous speeding tickets I’ve received.

December 1 I drive home for the weekend with another actor, lose my wallet, and spend the weekend in Vancouver like I’m on welfare.

December 3 My trailer is cold every morning. I consider cutting my dog open and crawling inside to stay warm.

December 4 Padi Mills (also one of the best line producers I’ve worked with) makes the following note in the production report after having shot for two and a half weeks inside a very small house with sub-zero temperatures outside: “CANNIBALISM: Crew dining on each other’s brains. Humour is rampant. Callum is happy.”

December 5 The jigsaw puzzle of the film is starting to come together. Keith trusts me more. Jane MacGregor is a talented young actor. She’s grounded, present and got a good slap. Dov Tiefenbach is insane.

December 6 My wallet shows up at the Shell station in Cache Creek. The cash is still inside. There’s something to be said for small towns.

December 7 The dog bowl is frozen in the trailer. I talk on my cell phone even though it still doesn’t work.

December 10 Great little scenes working with Kristen Thompson. I like being in scenes with her— they’re comfortable.

December 11 My last day in Ashcroft. The final scene is intense. Colin, our child actor is wrapped. I can’t connect with pieces of tape that I am supposed to play off. Certain scenes I can connect with tape, but not this one. So Keith gets into the crib and plays Colin.

December 13 We move back to Vancouver. My cel phone is working again. Everything’s working

December 14 We’re shooting in a hospital. My dog’s at the vet.

December 15 Last day. Flower gives birth. I finally get what Ed is afraid of. At wrap Keith gives flowers to everyone on set. I realize I am jaded and don’t want to be.
Epilogue The film is done. I’m sad. It’s probably the most transformative work I’ve ever done.

******

Food talk under the Riviera
By Natasha Stoynoff Sunday, May 24, 1998

CANNES - You don't really want to think about the end of the world as you lounge under the bright Riviera sun. But since that's what their film, Last Night -- showing at the Cannes Film Fest -- is about, actors Callum Keith Rennie and Sandra Oh oblige us with musing of how they might spend their last six hours on earth:

CALLUM: "I'd eat airplane food as my last meal. The kind you'd get in coach. The chicken entree."

SANDRA: "Definitely Korean food. Dumpling soup. Now that's comfort food. And I'd be listening to something by The Clash."

C: "Fractured Atlas by Elvis Costello."

S: "For my last movie? Something really romantic."

C: "Tommy Boy?"

(They both howl with laughter.)

C: "Okay, okay. Wings Of Desire. 'Cause, gosh darnit, the damn thing's so hopeful! Lemme switch that to the last 10 minutes of Apocalypse Now."

S: "Casablanca! Romantic yet bittersweet."

C: "So what about sex?"

S: "I don't know. What if it was bad sex? Forget it!"

C (smiling wickedly): "You can make even bad sex good."

S: "Too much pressure."

C: "I'd be so tense, I'd need a release."

S: "But what if you couldn't release in TIME?"

C: "But to go out while doing it ... the explosion in the end would be like ... death."

S: "So the end of the world would be like one Big O?"

C: "Yeah."

S (teasing him about his brief nude scene in the film): "All you've been doing the last two days is obsessing about your ass."

C (defensive): "It's just I've never seen it in that framework before. I don't want the terror of seeing my own ass on screen. What if I like it -- a LOT?" (He laughs.)

S: "I think it's very important we see Callum's ass in the film. We never get to see enough men's asses on screen."

C: "Let's change the subject."

S: "Okay. The last book I'd read? Sexing The Cherry -- there's one page that describes these magnetic beings that are dancing ... spinning until they become particles of light."

C: "I'd read The Toronto Sun. No question."

******


All That Korean Rage, Unbottled
By HILARY DE VRIES

Published: October 17, 2004

OS ANGELES

NURSING a case of the flu, caught while filming her latest movie, the drama "Sorry Haters," co-starring Robin Wright Penn, the 33-year-old Ontario-born actress Sandra Oh is working through what should be a sick day. She has half a dozen films awaiting release, including "3 Needles," a Canadian drama in which she plays a nun nursing African AIDS victims. Beginning in January, she will also be seen in a new television series, the ABC medical drama "Grey's Anatomy," in which she plays an ambitious surgical intern. It will be her first TV role since Ms. Oh landed in Hollywood eight years ago playing Robert Wuhl's spunky assistant on the HBO comedy "Arli$$."

After a morning on the set, Ms. Oh is bundled in a shawl here in the Hollywood Hills house she shares with her husband, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter and director Alexander Payne ("Election," "About Schmidt"). She is doing her best to explain "Sideways," Mr. Payne's oenophilic buddy comedy, which opens on Friday and co-stars Ms. Oh, Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen. It is the couple's first film together, shot only six months after they married in January 2003. In a conversation punctuated by coughing fits and bursts of profanity, Ms. Oh talked about her new series, working with her husband and what it's like being one of the only actors of Korean descent working in Hollywood.

HILARY DE VRIES: In "Sideways" you play a sexy, smart, wine-loving biker who is also a bit of a terror. It's a big change from most of your roles in Hollywood, where you were in danger of being permanently labeled "sassy."

SANDRA OH: Per-ma-nent-ly! Yeah, that happens when you play characters who are in positions of authority and you're not the lead. You're relegated to sassy.

Q. Well, your husband is one writer who obviously sees you as something more than sassy. Were the two of you looking for a project to do together?

A. No, Alexander doesn't work that way. He just thought the part of Stephanie was right for me - and it's not necessarily the kind of part people would think of me for. Even when we were shooting, people would say, "Oh, I thought you'd be playing the other woman," Maya who is more sincere and earthy.

Q. Given all the wine in the movie, it looked like it was fun to film.

A. The movie is an ode to wine on one hand, but it's also a beautiful examination of the nearing- middle-age white American male.

Q. And that's interesting to you as a woman?

A. When was the last time you saw a real [expletive] friendship between two men in a movie? I mean a real one? Not the "I'm the wild cop and you're the by-the-book cop," which is the only way we see men relating to each other in movies. It's the story of two men, one who won't grow up and the other one is filled with self-loathing.

Q. Not surprisingly, the women in the movie are--

A. Much more together. Even though they are not on screen that much, the women have a tremendous impact because of the way they're written. I wish more women would be represented in film like that because I think how Stephanie and Maya deal with men is how women really want to deal with men.

Q. Which is how exactly?

A. One, beat the [expletive] out of them. And two, that scene where Maya tells Paul's character I have spent the last three years of my life getting out of a relationship and I'm just fine. How many times I wish I had the sense of myself and the strength to present myself that way and also how many times I wish I had bashed someone's face in.

Q. In the film, you get that chance to do just that. Was that hard to film?

A. No! Alexander said to me, "Just call on those centuries of female Korean rage." But also, Stephanie doesn't have that much screen time, so I had to explain with as little dialogue as possible why she is the way she is. Why she would fall for this guy and why she would let him put her daughter to bed - I mean, she's not the best mom - and why she would take up a helmet and assault him. O.K., so she's not that grounded. Well, what could help show that? Alexander and I talked about that - I'm lucky because I can talk to the director this way - and I said, "Well, what if her mother is Caucasian?''

Q. Implying your character had been adopted?

A. Which is the reality for a lot of Koreans. It's also kind of funny. But it tells her story in a very subtle way.

Q. It seems like people are only finding out you guys got married because of the film.

A. That's fine with us. I mean, you don't have to make a big deal out of it.

Q. So he says he asked you out, but you turned him down, for eight months.

A. Well, I was busy.

Q. What do mean busy? With work, your personal life?

A. B-U-S-Y, in all capitals! [Laughing] I want it in the [expletive] record that Alexander Payne chased Sandra Oh for eight months and she would not go out with him because she was "busy." And by the way, the first thing you notice about Alexander Payne is that he is very handsome.

Q. Do you want to have children? You played a mother in "Under the Tuscan Sun" and now in "Sideways."

A. I don't know, but as soon as you pass 30 in Hollywood, you can play mothers of 15-year-olds, which is [expletive] ridiculous.

Q. But at least they're not sassy. Neither is the woman you play on your new TV series. Was that \part of your reason for doing TV again?

A. I made the decision to go back and do TV because I've made four movies last year and worked three months and I can't do that.

Q. Too much? Too little?

A. Too little! Look, I understand myself more as an actor in Hollywood now and I know that I don't get jobs in films by auditioning. I'm not blonde. You can't place me in movies the way you can with certain actors. It's very difficult for my agents. They say to me, "I have a hard time getting you in" and all I want is a shot. Some directors like Altman or Alexander cast who they want, but otherwise you have to drop about $15 million from your budget if you want to do that. I mean, unless you're Gwyneth Paltrow, most women can't greenlight a $5 million movie.

Q. But you were just in "Under the Tuscan Sun," which was a big-budget, mainstream picture. How did that happen?

A. Because [the director] Audrey Wells believed in me, wrote that part for me and pushed for me. I know for me to be in any film over $3 million, there is someone pushing for me because I am not an easy sell. All the jobs I've gotten in the last two years are because directors have seen the work I've done - indie films, plays, short student films, TV - since I moved to the states in 1996. I mean, I have an entire career in Canada that nobody has seen.

Q. So wait, "Under the Tuscan Sun" didn't lead to other offers?

A. After it came out, I couldn't get an [expletive] audition. The only other role I got was another best friend and they said to me, "Well, you've already played a best friend so we're not going to cast you." That was a turning point for me to go back to TV - I'd hit the glass ceiling of playing the best friend. And we all know the classic best-friend role is [expletive]. You're on the periphery. You're all sardonic, all sass-say. You're not even sassy, you're sass-say. But even so, you're not going to let me play another one? It was enraging. It's not like they're ever going to say to Danny Glover, "Oh, you can't play another buddy because you've already played one." Or say to Jeremy Piven, "You can't play John Cusack's best friend again." So because I don't want to depress myself by going out for [expletive], I would rather work in television where the roles are [expletive] better. I can get a better role in TV and work more constantly than I can waiting around for my friends in Canada to call me every four years - which they do - and I go up there and play a leading role.

Q. Was your new character on "Grey's Anatomy," the intern Christina Yang, written as Asian?

A. No, she was a pert little blonde and the thing is the woman who runs the show, Shonda Rhimes, is a black woman, which makes a big [expletive] difference. What I like about my character is she's ambitious, she's not apologetic. She's a complete female character who doesn't have to be bitchy or conniving.

Q. Why are so few Asian actors working in Hollywood? The Screen Actors Guild just released new job figures that show a decline in the number of Asian actors. I mean there's you, Lucy Liu and Margaret Cho, and then I have to stop and think.

A. And can we even name a male Asian actor? It's because Hollywood imports Asian stars who already have worldwide appeal. They're wonderful actors, all of them, but Hollywood wants them because Hong Kong and Chinese action movies are so popular now.

Q. So it makes more sense to cast a Maggie Cheung or Gong Li from China than Sandra Oh from Canada?

A. Absolutely. And the same thing is true of Latino actors, except for J. Lo, who is a global entity. And Queen [Latifah.] She's got such credibility. A lot of women wind up producing themselves, but I don't. I just want to act. Just give me good writing because what I do well is [expletive] interpret words. But sometimes I don't think they know who I am.

Q. Who do "they" think you are?

A. People ask me what I'm writing. They think I'm Sandra Tsing Loh. Or they ask about stand-up. "No, that's Margaret Cho." I really think there is this kind of glomming, that they think we are somehow all the same person.

Q. Or that you're all best friends.

A. Yeah, but I'm not and I would love to be friends with Margaret. She is such a singular artist and she was not supported by her own community. Koreans didn't support her because of their own [expletive] bias, what's the word, something -ist, not racist but just that [expletive] where they only want Asian stars who look like [expletive] Asian kewpie dolls.

******

In Step With®...Molly Parker
By James Brady
Published: July 9, 2006

Critics have hailed HBO’S Deadwood as the “best drama on TV” with the “finest writing, best cast.” And millions of viewers agree. So, when the network was talking about killing it off, they spoke up. I asked Molly Parker, the wonderful Canadian-born actress who plays wealthy widow Alma Garret on the series, what happened.

“I don’t see how HBO could have ignored the uproar,” said the star of the hit show, explaining that online petitions had swamped the network. A compromise was cut to wind up the salty Western yarn next year with two dramatic two-hour movies.

Deadwood is set in 1877 in the wilds of pre-statehood South Dakota, with plenty of crime and corruption. Molly stars with a large cast of colorful characters. In fact, the show was nominated for 22 Emmys and won seven in its first two seasons.

“For me, the timing is perfect,” said Molly of the decision to film next year, “because I’m now pregnant with my first baby, and it’s due in October, so I would be able to work again next spring.” I said she was pretty trim while carrying a baby. How does she manage that? “I’ve been doing prenatal yoga,” she replied, “and that helps out. I’m not much for the gym.” Interestingly, right now, her character Alma is also “in the family way.”

The series is shot outside L.A., on what’s known as Melody Ranch—a studio set once owned by Gene Autry. What’s that like?

“It’s just awful,” said Molly. “It’s hot like crazy—a desert dustbowl. It never rains.” So I asked why it always looks muddy. “They have these huge fire hoses they turn on, and the mud comes,” said Molly. “Then they put 200 extras out there in the heat with 40 horses and mules, and this place reeks. And for a pregnant woman, you can just imagine.” No creature comforts?

“Well,” she admitted, “we do have trailers with A/C, DirecTV and wireless Internet.”

Brady's Bits
Molly Parker was brought up in Canada. “I studied ballet from when I was 3,” she told me, “but in my last year of high school, I tired of dance and started acting. My uncle, an actor, took me to see his agent, and he sent me off to study.

I became totally excited about acting.” After some TV work, Molly moved to Toronto, where she continued in film roles and has since won two Genie Awards (Canada’s version of Oscars). Today she lives in L.A. and has two films due in September: Hollywoodland is about George Reeves, the 1950s’ TV Superman, with Ben Affleck and Adrien Brody. “It’s a beautiful script,” she said. Then there’s a “dark thriller,” The Wicker Man, with Nicolas Cage. Until then, you can see Molly every Sunday this summer on Deadwood, as the press raves on. In fact, the day we spoke, the New York Post called her series “a thrill to be savored for 12 glorious weeks.”

******

Molly Parker
The 29-year-old from Maple Ridge, Vancouver, remains suspicious of Hollywood

Mark Morris
Sunday September 2, 2001
The Observer

Canadians have a reputation for being conventional. But not in the film world, where they are known for work that is strange, fearless, even creepy. Take Molly Parker, and Kissed, the scandal of the 1997 London Film Festival, an attempt to make a considered film about necrophilia. Or the two she has coming up: Suspicious River, reteamed with Kissed director Lynne Stopkewich, and The Centre of the World, Wayne Wang's film about strangers having sex in Vegas hotels.

The 29-year-old from Maple Ridge, Vancouver, remains suspicious of Hollywood. 'There are better parts for women in the indie field.'

Five things you need to know about Molly Parker

1. On why she acts: 'I'm interested in why people are as crazy as they are, and why I'm crazy.'

2. She went to the Kissed audition not knowing the film had a necrophiliac element.

3. She spent 10 years studying ballet.

4. On why she remains suspicious of the press: 'I don't want people to know about me. It's dangerous to my work.'

5. She accidentally licked a dead rat in the first scene she shot for Kissed.

*******

Molly Parker Brings Alma Garret to Life
HBO.com

Molly Parker, who laughingly calls herself a "snobby independent-film type" wasn't so sure about auditioning for the part of the sedated, rich man's wife in Deadwood. "Alma didn't figure much in the pilot," she says. "The part was so small, I think she had two lines." But Parker admired the writing and the story, and with a nudge from her agent, she met with series creator David Milch about the role. "We talked a while, and David said, 'Do you have any questions?' And I said, 'Yes--who is she?"

Milch's answer was forty minutes long. "He just painted a picture of this person that was so amazing," she says. You know, women in Westerns don't always receive the best representation. But he has such immense compassion for the characters, particularly the women. I just listened the whole time. And then I read my two lines. And he said, 'That's it. That's her.'"

Now the Canadian-born Parker, at 32 a veteran of films like Wonderland, Sunshine and Center of the World, finds her Victorian society widow emerging as one of the series' most compelling characters. "Alma is such a mystery, even to herself," Parker says. "But when her husband dies, this small voice in her tells her that she could get to be a real person if she stays in this town. And that's not a possibility for her if she goes home. "

So how does Parker, who lives outside L.A. with her director husband Matt Bissonette, feel about her suddenly high-profile role? "I'm so used to doing films that not many people see," she says. "And I've not had a relationship with a character that's existed for this length of time. So it's odd to hear people talk about it...and also great."

Good golly, Miss Molly
Suddenly, Molly Parker is one of the most in-demand actors in Canada

By INGRID RANDOJA

The saying in the movie business is that Canada produces actors, not stars. But you can forget that -- Miss Molly Parker has stepped into the spotlight.

Parker first turned heads with her extraordinarily low-key performance in director Lynne Stopkewich's Kissed, in which she managed to make necrophilia seem poetic. Kissed was an unlikely launching pad for the then Vancouver-based actor, but talent, no matter how it's wrapped, has a way of unfolding and getting noticed.

Parker stars in three films at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. In writer/director Jeremy Podeswa's evocative The Five Senses, she plays a mother whose child disappears. In English director Michael Winterbottom's Wonderland, she's a working-class, pregnant South Londoner. And in István Szabó's epic Sunshine, she's a Hungarian Jew married to, yes, Ralph Fiennes. It's a string of roles any female actor would covet.

"Oh, there's no question I'm very fortunate," says a smiling Parker. "I made these three movies in the space of six months, and it was an intense, joyous experience."

The now Toronto-based Parker, a movie publicist and a hair/makeup stylist have all descended on the west-end home of NOW photographer Susan King. Parker is making herself comfortable for our interview while the talk focuses on arrangements for the photos.

She's a wee bit tired of being described as fresh-faced and wholesome, even though she sort of is. She insists she's been without makeup in all her recent photos, looking like she just finished scrubbing her face in a mountain lake. So it's time to snap a few glam pics.

But she's no prima donna. Parker has a serene, intelligent presence. It's this still, watchful quality that informs her acting. She's one of the best onscreen listeners I've ever seen. Her open face acts like a drawbridge, inviting you to step inside her character's mind.

"That's what interests me about being an actor," she says. "It's not 'Hey, look at me,' it's about psychological depth. When I'm acting, people shouldn't be seeing me, they should be seeing themselves.

"I didn't go to theatre school, but I did study acting for four years with a really great teacher. I still walked around with the assumption that every other actor knew what they were doing except me. I thought they all had a plan, and when they got a part they took out this list and went down it," laughs Parker.

"Of course, that's not true. Some people have very specific ways of working, but with me it's really a subconscious process."

Parker trusts her intuition in front of the camera, but in the wake of Kissed's opening she was at a loss as to how to handle success.

"When we made Kissed, my biggest hope was that Toronto filmmakers would see me and consider casting me in their movies," remembers Parker. "Then, suddenly my career changed entirely. It was the first time in my life I'd had choices, which can be a little debilitating, so I ended up taking things easy. I was unsure what I wanted to do. Then, suddenly there were a bunch of scripts I really, really liked and they all fell into place."

Parker had promised Podeswa two years ago that she would do The Five Senses. Sunshine producer Robert Lantos wanted her to audition for his film in London, where she later read for the Michael Winterbottom movie.

"I remember I was in Montreal when I got a message from my agent saying 'You got Sunshine, the movie with Ralph Fiennes!' My girlfriend and I were out shopping, and it was, 'Aaaah, let's go out and buy shoes to celebrate!' "

Landing roles doesn't seem to be a problem for Parker any more, but she waves off my silly assumption.

"It's a weird combination of things. It's like where you are -- are you in the right city to meet that person on that day, and have they seen your work and do they even care? I mean, I've been hired by people who saw me in a magazine and thought I looked interesting.

"Getting work is never straight-forward, and even if you're an actor who's working all the time -- and I mean all the time -- you're probably still being rejected 80 per cent of the time. You have to put that out of your mind."

******

The story of Oh: Canadian scene-stealer Sandra Oh plays lesbian in the new film Under the Tuscan Sun, with helpful hints from out TV writer - film
Advocate, The, Sept 30, 2003 by Chrisanne Eastwood

As Sandra Oh has discovered, it's easy to forget who you are in Hollywood. Sure, she may have won Canada's Genie Award (their Oscar) twice. And OK, she played New York's Public Theater and Los Angeles's Mark Taper Forum while spending seven seasons portraying Rita Wu in HBO's hit comedy Arli$$ (for which, full disclosure, I used to write). True, she steals scenes like nobody's business. And yes, when her name's attached to a project up north, the green light blazes.

Meanwhile, here in Hollywood, Sandra's patiently waiting for us to catch her wave. Next up, site costars opposite Oscar nominee Diane Lane in Audrey Wells's (Guinevere) loose adaptation of Frances Mayes's memoir Under the Tuscan Sun. How loose is the adaptation? How about "add lesbian best friend and stir gently"? Writer-director Wells created the role of Patti, buddy of Diane Lane's Frances.

Did Sandra keep it real as the latest lezzie on the block? I dropped by her L.A. digs to find out. She was pouring chardonnay, prepping for her next role as a wine wrangler in husband Alexander Payne's latest project, Sideways. In the name of the actor's process, we drank up her props as we talked.

Chrisanne Eastwood [sipping daintily]: So you play a lesbian in this flick for the small world at Disney.

Sandra Oh: Yes, and let's hear it for Disney and all their gayness.

C: Huzzah! And let's hear how Disney felt about Diane Lane's best friend being a dyke--and a pregnant one no less. Your character wasn't in the book, you know.

S: Duh, I read it! I think Audrey Wells did a superb job adapting what is basically a travelogue into a dramatic work. And, I hope she doesn't mind me saying this--I believe my character, Patti, is based on someone very dear to her.

C: Now, Patti is a relatively happy film lesbian until she gets dumped.

S: Yeah, sorry about that. But it mirrors the lead character and the theme of the film.

C: Meaning?

S: Dumped. All three major women characters get dumped. And all of them get over it and get on with their lives. Is that typical in lesbian films?

C: This is not a lesbian film. This is a film with a lesbian in it. If it were a lesbian film, your character would have been lost in The Well of Diane Lane-liness. How gay is this movie?

S: Kate Walsh and I play lesbians. Diane Lane goes on a "Gay and Away" bus tour full of homos, where she hangs with the cute and hilarious Dan Bucatinsky.

C: Ah, the fag and the hag. But Patti is a lesbian and Frances is straight and they're best friends. We don't see that dynamic often.

S: No, but it exists [pointing to both of us], hello! I think what we see onscreen is often a reflection of who's in power. So when we see gay people, it's usually men.

C: So how many times have you played lesbian?

S: In my mind, numerous times [chuckling]. On-screen, Tuscan Sun. On Arli$$ my character, Rita, had off-screen dalliances. And onstage I played pre-lesbian.

C: Pre-lesbian? Sounds like an intro course at Smith. Where?

S: In Diana Son's Stop Kiss. The play traced two women falling in love without them knowing what it is to be a lesbian. It was very pre-[Kissing] Jessica Stein.

C: How did you approach playing this lesbian?

S: I thought completely in terns of character. I created my own back story for Patti. Frances and I met in college, I was in love with her at one point--

C: Been there, done that--

S: --so, if I'm doing my job correctly, in Patti and Frances you will see a very involved friendship, a protectiveness.

C: Whatever. Now let's make this about me. How did I inspire your lesbian portrayal in this film?

S: Actually, seeing you fall apart when you got dumped last year really helped.

C: Gee, thanks. At leant I wasn't your inspiration for that kiss. Talk about chaste. I kiss my dog better than that.

S: It was chaste because the relationship was going to come apart soon. Ever heard of foreshadowing?

C: Chicken. Speaking of kissing, give me your top three kissable women.

S: Ooh, OK. 1 would definitely kiss Jessica Hecht from Stop Kiss again. She's excellent. And I would totally kiss Angelina Jolie--

C: You and every other dyke with a lip.

S: She is just filled with fat, juicy pockets, dontcha think? And, oh yeah, Maggie Cheung [In the Mood for Love], because she is one of the most beautiful women ever.

C: You're Canadian. Is that why you're funny?

S: You know, I have a very different career in Canada, where I'm considered only a dramatic actor, as opposed to here. But as a person I can be fairly witty.

C: What do Canadians make fun of?

S: People from Alberta.

C: k.d. lang's province?

S: And the only province that will not accept same-sex marriage.

C: Boo! Hiss! Alberta sucks! [We drink to that.] So how do you feel about same-sex marriage?

S: Woo-hoo! Gotta tell you, in one month same-sex marriage and pot being decriminalized? Canada is definitely the coolest country in the world.

C: You guys sound too perfect. Don't Canadians have any damage?

S: [Sipping thoughtfully] Canadians have a natural ... disdain for people who are too big for their britches.

C: You mean Americans.

S: No, no, just that characteristic. But I think America in general has a sense of entitlement, while Canada lives and dies by the breed of the underdog.

C: So if a director were to say to you, "Act more Canadian," what would you do?

S: [Smirking] I would think he was a terrible director.

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The Kink of Kensington
By Veronica Cusack - Toronto Life - January 1998

A spiral of green motorcars driving across yellow pyjama pants provides a pleasing contrast to the bleak, fetid ski jacket. The wearer smiles, but a smile and an upright posture prove too much to maintain, and he sinks slowly, contentedly, to the concrete. I return his greeting and step carefully across rubber boots, one black, one green, glance at the rows of pageboys and perms in the window of the four-dollar-a-cut hair salon and ring the bell to a third-floor Kensington Market apartment.

On-screen, the camera widens Don McKellar's brown eyes, enlarges his forehead, makes him slightly odd, a man about to be a victim. Away from the celluloid, he is softer, physically more boy than adult, this hair a blue-black cottering, his voice cultured, impossibly tranquil. The large overcoat is frayed at the cuffs, his heavy cardigan presenting an avuncular air in disagreement with the ancient Roadkill T-shirt and its motto, EID RO EVOM. He jumps lightly down the final two stairs at this doorway, sidestepping the horizontal pyjama legs, and ambles out into the organized chaos of the market.

This October visit is my fifth, perhaps sixth, meeting with Don McKellar. I first met him some years ago -- before the Genie for his role in Atom Egoyan's Exotica; before his cowriting of Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould and its awards from around the world; before he wrote the new TV series Twitch City and two more movies, The Red Violin and Last Night -- projects that make the first months of this new year fat with promise. "It's not quite the right time for a profile," opined various editors, and at the next enounter, desperately trying to keep pace, I would talk to McKellar of further writings, further roles.

We used to meet in a tiny Portuguese café, a few doors from his apartment, where the owner would entertain us with details of neighbourhood robberies or suspected drug deals or the dead baby kept in a freezer for seven years. In those days McKellar made his home above a small, downcast dress store that sold velvet frocks and Sunday best. One early April day as he crowded over the dim threshold, I asked to see inside. There was only the slightest chagrin at the ankle-deep clothing on the bedroom floor or the days of dishes in the sullen kitchen. Instead, he offered an exasperated wave at the tax receipts paving the living room floor and soft delight at the Chinese bootleg CD that confuses REM with CCR.

Now he has moved a block south to a space that, like its predecessor, has the ambiance of a frat house. At thirty-four, McKellar possesses a twenty-dollar bicycle and a minimal amount of extremely ratty furniture. Luxuries include a catholic library (The Brothers Karamazov; The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sexual Practices; Textual Poachers; Television Fans & Participatory Culture); a vast, bewitching blowup of Al Waxman as the surly hobo and murder victim of Twitch City, an axe next to a woodstove on a floor that bears the marks of a much chopping; and appallingly glorious black and midnight-blue satin sheets, a residue of the Last Night film set, where they belonged to a character intent on spending the final hours of the earth's existence in sexual discover. "Did you actually buy anything?" I ask, surveying the Early Rec Rooom decor. He looks around for long moments. "Yes, the vacuum cleaner! No, wait, my parents bought that."

Today, we pass the window of a market café on Nassau Street, a woman in simulated leopard skin devours fluffy pastries, a brightly coloured cockatiel perched on her lacquered head. It is difficult to imagine McKellar apart from this place. The personal informs everything he writes, and much of the personal is in some way associated with these narrow streets, where goods harvested, baked or plucked slop across the sidewalks, and where square, grey bodies smelling of boiled greens and bingo jostle with fleshless moderns to gain wine-coloured plums or golden fowl.

"All my writing is in some way drawing on my experiences. But I try not to think specifically. The scene would become anecdotal, and even though I am exploring myself, I want to keep some mystery even to me." To McKellar, writing, acting and directing all intertwine: "There is something unnatural about trying to distinguish between them. When I am writing, I am acting out all the parts; when acting, I am directing and writing in my head; when directing, I am forcing people to act out little facets of myself."

While at Lawrence Park Collegiate, McKellar ran his own theatre company, and at the University of Toronto he did plays at nearly every college until he dropped out one credit shy of a degree ("I am waiting for them to give me an honorary doctorate"). As a cofounder of the Augusta Company theatre collective, he produced eight original pieces. In 1986, gonzo film director Bruce McDonald asked him to write the script of Roadkill and to star as the aspiring serial killer whose ankles are too weak for hockey. The cult hit was followed by Highway 61, also written by and starring McKellar. In 1992, while a resident at the Canadian Film Centre, he wrote and directed the acclaimed short Blue (explicit sex and David Cronenberg).

"As a writer he can drive you crazy," says François Girard, dark kinetic hair and delicate bones, a Gallic version of his friend and partner, sits at a desk in a darkened editing room to point and click across a movie shot in five countries and five languages and covering three centuries in the life of a musical instrument. "He works night and day but is the slowest writer I've ever known. Something is written only after studying all possible permutations around a specific point in a scene; then he moves to the next point. The result is a tremendous economy and an immense quality to his writing."

To find his characters, to find his voice, McKellar walks. Kensington Market is an excellent footpath. It is that rare place in this deferential city where pedestrians consider themselves equal to the combustion engine and refuse to wait for instruction to proceed. "I rehearse strategies in my head. What I really do is try to find the puzzle. It's about one central thing, something propels it forward. Once I figure that out, the rest is easy. Curtis [Twitch City's antihero] is inarticulate, so I have to decide in each scene why he isn't talking: he's being passive-seductive or whatever. I have a good sense of character without it being overly analytical and schematic, and I think I have a good empathetic ability. I read a lot, and that informs my sense of what a character is and how people think, and I do a lot of research.

"I am stubborn and possessive about my writing. It is one of the reasons why I don't move to Hollywood." When I first met McKellar, it was impossible to believe this statement. I saw him as too benign, too malleable, to survive L.A. But the serene facade conceals an implacable nature. There have been many offers.

"For example?"

"Sitcoms, film parts, writing. I don't want to be specific," he mumbles. By now the evasion routine is familiar to me. He is vague and protective about so many aspects of his life; nervous of how others will view him.

"It seems so presumptuous or foolish to talk about this, that I am flaunting this or turning things down out of laziness or fear of perhaps self-assurance. I can tell you that Universal talked about a rewrite of Bride of Frankenstein. That sounded interesting, but I just never followed through. I was too busy."

Tinseltown holds little appeal. "The smallest change in a traditional Hollywood structure is seen as objectionable," he explains. "We can only subvert ideas that are already there. Glenn Gould was a traditional artist's biography and a conventional narrative, but by blatantly exposing the film's three-act structure and its thirty-two scenes, it was disguised as something revolutionary."

The Augusta Company honed his confidence. McKellar, Tracy Wright and Daniel Brooks questioned every line and every gesture in every play, tearing apart theatre's meaning and purpose. "In a way it was always about personal power, fighting for one's own beliefs. We were forced to defend opinions. I simply internalized the collective."

The Red Violin is the largest, most expensive, most ambitious project that McKellar has yet worked on. His intention was always to push the limits. A gracious, gentle-hearted manner pacified Chinese officials and Hollywood moguls alike. "Everything is about saving face, so you have to always seem like you are complying with their concerns while really you are just giving them another chance to say yes." McKellar is talking about the Chinese and the days upon days of negotiation that resulted in not one line being lost during the Shanghai portion of the filming. But the same quiet strategy was obviously used on Hollywood backers a who balked at subtitles and demanded A-list actors. "They wanted to approach Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves to play the English aristocrat. We fought and fought and fought. We agreed to approach Jack Nicholson because there was no way he'd do it, he doesn't do small movies. We didn't approach Keanu Reeves because we thought he might actually say yes."

Mid-afternoon at the Kensington Cafe, McKellar blithely asks for a menu and orders appetizer and entree. At earlier meetings he would wriggle and lower his head in a gesture of apology before ordering his food. "Are you sure this is okay? I haven't eaten all day." Now, my secondary role as a provider of free meals is simply accepted, understood by us both. A woman laden with groceries approaches our table. She recognizes McKellar from years before when he dated her daughter, but she cannot remember his name. She knows only that his father is a lawyer. "That was important in Lawrence Park," he laughs.

"I am afraid of comfort. I actively resist lovely things in my life," he mutters, and the brushed-metal frames are removed from his nose and subjected to a frantic cleansing. "I grew up in a very comfortable upper-middle-class household with very good liberal parents [his father, John, is a QC and an arts patron, sitting on the Canada Council and a number of theatre boards], but it was an oppressive comfort; delicate subject...don't want to... I developed resistance as a way of protecting myself, as a way of separating myself, just as performing was. I read every black-liberation book, I read a lot of Chinese communism, went through the Beat thing, and what I adopted became ingrained in a way that affected my lifestyle. Sometimes this choice is a productive thing and sometimes destructive; sometimes it is just a reaction that I should think through. It affects my relationships; they go on forever, they are tortured, complicated, up and down, big fights, last for years."

Discomfort grows, sentences trail away; his complexion, through the dark stubble, is tinged with pink; the thick mat of chest hair emerging from the T-shirt begins to tremble. I push my advantage.

"When a woman seems to find comfort in a relationship, do you become nervous, back off?"

"I can't believe I am having this discussion, it is bringing back so many nightmare conversations. Yes."

He squirms, managing to look all the more attractive.

"I have affairs on trips. I travel a lot."

"Because you think you can easily say good-bye?"

"It never works out that easy, but it always seems as if it should. I'm not fighting bourgeois entrapments, I am apparently not in need. I always feel that if I want to I can get that wife, that house, those children. I guess I always saw life and romance as inevitable and my life in between, my career, as stalling. My personal life is always getting me in trouble. I'm not very good at defining...but I keep my personal life very personal except with the people involved. And even then..."

"That could explain why things are never resolved."

"You could be right there."

Which brings us neatly to the six-part series Twitch City, the story of a man and his neuroses. "I was at a reception in 1994 and Ivan Fecan [then vice-president of English television networks for CBC] was there and said, 'I would like to work with you,' and I said jokingly, 'How about a new King of Kensington,' and he said, 'Put a proposal on my desk tomorrow.'" Fast-forward over much walking and its results, including the discreation of the original King (Waxman's character is butchered by a bag full of tinned cat food in the opening episode), to a series of phone messages that aggregate as: "I'm afraid we can't do your show; we have all been fired." Much Corp dithering, too ridiculous to document. Then, early in 1997, at the dilapidated end of Front Street, Bruce McDonald shoots Twitch. McKellar, toying with the conventions of sitcom, highlights a generation of the overeducated and under-employed who grew up with television as a family member. He takes on the role of Curtis, an agoraphobic cheapskate living in Kensington Market.

Now there's the danger. McKellar is not Curtis -- despite the obvious links. "In many ways it is people's perception of me, even strangers', and that's what I expand on, play around with. It both creates and explored my own personal mythology." Large slices of McKellar's emotions feed his writing despite constant attempts to shield himself from commitment and sentiment. "He is good at protection," says Girard, "at keeping his secrets. Don is a lot of contradictions: full of doubt and certitude. We travelled a lot together on Red Violin and Glenn Gould. He doesn't show off how extensive his knowledge is, but if you walk into a museum or an art gallery, he becomes your guide. He is one of the most erudite people I have met. Yet he accepts his own insecurites. To live and work with them gives him strength and courage for other things.... The dichotomy is essential to any healthy artist."

Tracy Wright, one of the Augusta Company cofounders, first met McKellar at university. "I fell in love with him instantly, on sight." Though the couple are no longer lovers, they remain the closest of friends. (We come across her in the market, and as they confirm a time to see Boogie Nights at the Uptown, their fingers twine absently together.) "All these years later," she tells me, "there is still a mystery to him."

Sitting on the notched green living-room floor on the autumn afternoon, McKellar and I watch Last Night rushes. I've brought cappuccinos; I can't trust him to offer refreshments. I was offered a chair, but the circular basket affair needs a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull to be truly appreciated. His cell-phone rings, and I rag him about possessing such a gewgaw. "The production company made me take it. You're not going to put it in the story, are you?"

Last Night marks McKellar's debut as a director of feature films. On the dusty TV screen an acquiescent group of Torontonians play out their final hours. They are quintessential Canucks: melancholy and polite. McKellar has chosen to play a familiar character: the gentle man, out of his depth, life out of his control. It is the note he is most comfortable displaying (though in the café he took umbrage at this suggestion and dug hard at the dregs of his leek soup.) McKellar's limitations as an actor highlight his abilities as a writer. I see him as a wordsmith, not the creative trinity. He writes of a stationary generation camouflaged with comedy; of the ecumenical language of music; of necrophilia, excrement and an opinionated prick -- a real one (not yet filmed). Other occupations allow him to embellish his primary purpose.

McKellar is still elated from the shooting that ended only two days earlier. He beams at qustions, bounces up to point at the screen, explains casting, camera angles and credit placement, examines how he comes to choose such a theme: "When I was little I was very feverish once and ran into the street trying to warn people of the end of the world. I remember how worried my parents were. 'What happened?' 'There was a bad man and he...' The inarticulate child's version of events fell apart as I talked."

I move to gather up my belongings; we detour to examine his artwork -- abstracts and animals he's painted on quilted mattress fabric. An alphabet of storybook creatures lies on the kitchen counter. None of his illustrations shows the object named. Y IS FOR YO-YO reads the caption under a smiling green hippo.

Another leave-taking. McKellar is quiet for a moment, looks at me, considers, swears me to secrecy and tells a story. A cruel, unjust, outrageous story. Then he traces how the personal enters the professional. "When I was writing Last Night, I knew there was something that had interrupted Patrick [the lonely character McKellar portrays], separated him from his parents and his high-shcool friends, and it took me a long time to realize I was getting into a very personal emotional period. Shooting became extremely bizarre. At one point during a speech I felt I was going to start sobbing and called, 'Cut,' but then as a director thought maybe I should have allowed the scene to continue. It was the most schizophrenic moment of my life."

"He is never where you expect him to be," says François Girard. "One night I heard Don sing Frank Sinatra at a karaoke bar in Taiwan; it made me think I didn't know him at all."

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Oh, Sandra!
Out.com Exclusive: The sassy Golden Globe winner talks about closeted actors and why same-sex marriage (and pot) should be legal!
by Jeffrey Epstein

In Out’s June Hot Issue, Sandra Oh is Hottest Gay Icon in the Making. In exclusive outtakes from our chat with the actress, best-known these days for playing the acerbic Dr. Christina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy, talks about her late-blooming sexuality and why she understands people who stay in the closet.

Have you always felt the gay love?
I don’t know when that started really happening. That’s when you really get a sense of who’s watching. I have always felt it as a presence, but for real I did Diana Son’s play Stop Kiss at the Public in ’99. I have played a lot of gay characters in theater before, but this was the first piece of theater that a lot of people saw. And then Under the Tuscan Sun, too, there was a lot more notice. But it’s grown as my career has grown. It’s good love to have.

Why do you think the gays love Christina?
I like the fact that she’s someone who is their own person who is bucking a lot of things. But the wittiness, her sense of humor, comes from a beautifully arrogant and insecure place. I like that about her. I find it fascinating. I think you have to be a fairly aware person to play someone who is deeply unaware.

When you played gay in Under the Tuscan Sun did anyone—including your “people”—advise against doing that?

No. And if anyone said that, I wouldn’t have paid attention anyway. I have no one around me who would say anything like that. Half of Hollywood is gay—at least the people I run into! I’m not a person whose sexuality is so much of their personae. I understand it’s a very personal decision for actors, if they’re gay, whatever they want to do with that info, I understand. If you’re successfully seen as some hot guy and you’re hired to be the hot guy, and because of where and how we live you decide to stay in the closet because who you are might alienate your audience… if that’s important to you, that’s important. But I don’t have that pressure to fulfill a certain type of archetypal thing in society. There’s no pressure.

Your home country of Canada has legalized gay marriage. How did you feel when you heard that?
Oh, so proud! Legalizing things that make people get along better: pot and gay marriage. What’s the big deal? Live and let live. If you want to love who you want to love, go ahead!

Have you always had gay people in your life?
I guess so. I didn’t notice until I left home and went to theater school. I think I was really a late bloomer in a lot of my sexual consciousness. I’m ultimately happy with my development.