“My resume belies some of my appetite for gross out humor,” laughs the South African born, Toronto-raised producer of the Seth Rogen hit This Is the End.
But today we’re not talking about his edgy work with Rogen, his writing (he co-wrote the satanic comedy Teen Lust which debuts at the Toronto International Film Festival this year) or his award winning short films.
“I love using the scope of filmmaking and really getting the wheels turning,” he says, “being larger than life and creating a world. I thought The Calling had all of that, elements of mystery and comedy and drama, that I thought were a real draw.”
The Calling is his feature directing debut and stars Susan Sarandon as small-town Canadian cop tracking down a serial killer.
“I still pinch myself that it all came together the way it did,” he says. “There’s a saying in casting, ‘Who’s going to be your cast magnet?’ We had a pretty powerful magnet with Susan and once she was involved we were able to attract talent as diverse as the top line cast, Topher [Grace], Ellen [Burstyn] and Donald [Sutherland].”
The movie is a throwback to, as Stone says, “propulsive thrillers with big ideas executed by brilliant actors.” He says movies like Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider and Silence of the Lambs, “used to be the bread and butter back in the early 90s and if we could even be put in the same breath as any of those I’d be thrilled.”
“Those are some of my favorite movies of that era. There is so much character in them. I feel like the studios have replaced a lot of the character in those mid range films with spectacle. It takes a lot more money to make your money back so you have to appeal to a much broader audience. I guess that means adding robots.”
Not that he’s unwilling to make a mega movie one day.
“I hope to have a long career making the films I’d love to make,” he says, “so if the right story comes along and there’s a budget behind it I feel like I’d definitely jump at the chance if there was a story I could connect to and I thought there was some humanity to it. I would like to think I would only make something I feel a personal connection to.”
There was a time when serial killers ruled the movie theatres. Movies like “Kiss the Girls,” “Se7en” and “Silence of the Lambs” were big hits and law enforcement types like Alex Cross and Clarice Starling were big draws. Now those stories have been moved to the small screen and television shows like “CSI” and “Criminal Minds” track down the kinds of killers their big screen counterparts used to stalk.
“The Calling” is a throwback to the type of 90s thrillers that made Ashley Judd a star and kept audiences on the edge of their seats.
Drawn from the pages of Inger Ash Wolfe’s mystery novels, Susan Sarandon plays pill-popping Detective Hazel Micallef, a world weary small town Canadian cop just a drunken whisper away from unemployment. The sleepy little town of Fort Dundas doesn’t offer up much in the way of major cases until a string of grisly murders—slit throats and organ removals—forces Micallef to dust off her detecting skills and track down a killer with driven by fanatical religious fervor.
First time director Jason Stone ratchets the bleak atmosphere up to Creep Factor Five in this eerie character driven mystery. There’s a little bit of “Fargo” in the mix, with some dark humor—“I just found the guy’s stomach!”—and disquieting imagery, but the real draw is watching the characters navigate through the film’s unsettled but strangely familiar world.
Sarandon is terrific as outwardly tough detective with a self-destructive center, while Sutherland brings his patented gravitas to the role of a priest who knows more than he is willing to let on. They, along with Grace, Burstyn (who isn’t given enough to do) and Gil Bellows as a no nonsense detective, temper the story’s more outrageous holistic killer Catholic elements.
“The Calling” could have snapped up the pacing a bit, but the slower tempo gives us more time to sit back and enjoy the performances.
“It was the idea of connecting with another human being at a deep level,” that attracted John Bourgeois to acting. “I think that is what all artists try to do. We try to penetrate and get through to other people. To feel connected,” says the veteran mainstay of stage and screen.
“I came from a loving but troubled family that experienced the usual catastrophes (drugs, alcohol, adultery, divorce, debt) so there’s wasn’t a lot of support for higher education or culture.”
“That said, when I told them I was going to be an actor they encouraged me to go for it. Both my mother and my father had searing regrets for the roads not taken so they didn’t want me to have the same experience.”
He came across his love of acting quite by accident while studying journalism at Concordia in Montreal.
“It wasn’t until I was in second year university and honestly I needed to do a course where I didn’t need to write a paper,” he says. “So I took an acting course on a Monday night. That was it. I was bitten. I did a scene from Death of a Salesman and it was transformational.
Around the same time he worked as a production assistant on a film called Blood Relatives and for the first time saw how a performance was created.
“I had been around actors in my younger life and I didn’t know what they did until I saw a specific performance. I saw it being created and I went, ‘I see what this person is doing and it is really quite a craft they have going there.’ It wasn’t just showing off.”
That actor was Donald Sutherland. “I was his driver on the movie. Sutherland is a very thoughtful person and his approach to his work was very thoughtful. That changed my view of the craft.”
Despite booking three plays in his final year of university and thinking, ‘How hard can it be to make a living at this?’ he says, “the struggle, at the start, it’s mostly a financial one. There’s always a danger that the hustle will distort your character. That very nearly happened but I was fortunate to meet some very honest and good people along the way who kept me from self-destructing. So yes, I would do it again.
“Being an actor means being a great observer and that’s a great angle from which to experience life. Besides, resistance sharpens the senses and makes us keenly aware of the passing moment. And surely being present and connecting with others is what it’s all about.”
That passion for acting and relating to audiences hasn’t dimmed over the course of 100 plus film, television and stage roles—“You have to wear a lot of different hats in order to make a decent living,” he says—but recently, in addition to co-starring with Whoopi Goldberg in the TV movie A Day Late and Dollar Short, he has discovered a new way to practice his craft.
“I came to teaching relatively late,’ he says of his job as program director of Acting for Film and Television at Humber College. “The biggest revelation to me is that it is as much a craft as any other you can think of. It is a form of performance. You’re standing in front of people, talking. What I have discovered, when you teach you discover stuff about your craft.
“It puts your own relationship to your craft under a magnifying glass and you become fascinated by what it is that frees up creativity in an actor, how you can equip them with the right toolbox to give them that sense of liberation in their work. It is immensely gratifying.”
With a lifetime of experience under his belt he has some great advice for his students.
“Don’t ever wait for the phone to ring,” he says, “That’s a waste of time and energy. Instead act. Anywhere and everywhere. Make your own work. Love the craft and above all protect your talent from the harsh realities of the business. Find ways to practice it. Train with leading practitioners like at Humber. Produce a play. Make a web series. Act. Do. Everything else is gossip.”
SIDEBAR:
In his latest gig Ottawa-born actor John Bourgeois is stepping into some very big shoes. In the dramedy God of Carnage, now playing until December 15 at the Panasonic Theatre in Toronto, he’s lawyer Alan Cowan, previously played by Jeff Daniels on Broadway and Christoph Waltz on film.
He’s seen both productions but says neither inspired him. “I’ve been doing this for so long so I don’t find myself as easily influenced as I was when I was a young actor,” he says, his booming voice echoing down the line on a break from rehearsal. “I think young actors are more susceptible to those iconic influences.”
Instead, he drew on personal experience to build the character.
“I’ve known quite a few lawyers who are A type, personality driven, really competitive, hyper focused but sometimes they are a little socially tone deaf and that’s where I picked up Alan.”
Now that Harry Potter has cast his last cinematic spell and “Twilight” is fast fading into that breaking dawn, Hollywood is looking for the next best young adult sensation.
But how do you replace one of the biggest movie franchises of all time and the series that gave us warring werewolves and vampires?
How about with a blockbuster that feels like an indie film? “The Hunger Games” is poised to become a massive hit, but it feels more like a character study than the start of an epic payday for Tinsel Town.
Based on the first book in Suzanne Collins’s mega-successful series, “The Hunger Games” is set in Panem, a dystopian world ruled by a fascistic leader (Donald Sutherland). Each year the state hold The Hunger Games, a battle to death between twenty four players, two from each of the country’s districts. The televised games are equal parts “Miss Universe,” “American Idol” and “Death Race.” The story follows two “tributes” from District 12, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), two reluctant warriors whose survival is at stake.
From its opening moments “The Hunger Games” feels more intimate, thanks to some inventive hand held camera work, than you’d expect. And that’s a good thing.
As fans of the books know, the focus of the story is the characters. Sure they are thrown into a wild situation, but knowing and caring about Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark—admiring Katniss’s inner strength and courage or Peeta’s big heart—is as important to the success of the story as are the action scenes or the dystopian premise.
The result is a film that feels more mature than the “Twilight” series, although all the Young Adult tropes are very much in place.
Jennifer Lawrence has found the role that she will, likely, forever be associated with and brings substance to it. She imbues Katniss with a rich inner life—you can see the machinations of the character churning behind her eyes. This level of performance is critical to the success to not only this film, but also the inevitable sequels.
She is ably supported by Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Wes Bentley, Donald Sutherland Lenny Kravitz (who could easily have a second career as an actor) and Josh Hutcherson, but make no, mistake, this is her movie. She’s in virtually every scene and her growth from venerable shy girl to sly competitor is the beating heart of the story.
I enjoyed the subdued feel of “The Hunger Games,” but I couldn’t help but wonder what a truly visionary director like Terry Gilliam might have done with this material. Likely not handed in a PG-13 movie, but his imaginative, twisted take on a world where kids kill one another in reality shows would have been interesting to see.
Which is not to say director Gary “Seabiscuit” Ross has dropped the ball here. Not at all, he’s made a film that is both epic and intimate, timely—imagine the Kardashians with knives and bloodlust—which doesn’t pander to its audience.
“The Hunger Games” is somewhat formulaic in its approach, but it also is a (potential) blockbuster that puts the story and characters first and the special effects second. That’s a welcome formula.
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
