ACTOR
My first starring role was the voice of the Talking Christmas Tree. I was 5 years old and I hid under Miss Prescott’s desk, which position afforded, among other things, an interesting new perspective on Miss Prescott.
Over the years, I’ve had an awful lot of fun acting on stage, particularly in musicals. What could be better than singing and dancing? Comedies are always satisfying because, my god, you actually hear people laughing on the laugh lines, just like they’re supposed to.
I was in a murder mystery once – “Wait Until Dark” – and it is really exciting to hear audience members gasp and shriek.
If an actor is truly blessed, once (rarely twice) in a lifetime, he is given by the gods a role that just seems tailor made for him.
In 1996, the writer, Mark Leiren-Young, and the director, John Juliani, approached me and asked me to take on this new one-man show, “Shylock.” Mark sent the script over to me with a letter saying he needed for this a very good actor, a Jewish actor, and an actor who wasn’t afraid to “break the fourth wall.”
At the time, I was doing late-night radio, so I started reading “Shylock” at about 4:30 in the morning. Within a few minutes, I was literally shaking. The piece seemed to me very powerful, and it also seemed to be written for my own voice.
I have since done this show countless times in a wide range of locations and settings, including in Venice, Italy.
Each time I do it, the play gets stronger, richer, more emotional, more powerful and mysterious. The last night I did it in March 2007 in Victoria was inexplicably magical.
For an actor, those rare nights are unforgettably exciting.
My work in movies and television has been much less satisfying. Perhaps if I were a big star who had the opportunity to live inside a role for months or weeks of shooting, I would feel differently. But, like most Canadian actors, I am a “day player,” covering a few pages of action and dialogue for a minor character. As well, the atmosphere on set is so often all about power and status.
I do very little film acting these days and I am happy to have moved on to other work that I find so satifying.
