August 1999
Paul Gross, known as Constable Fraser to millions of television viewers, showed up to partake in a question & answer session with fans at a due South convention in Toronto, Canada. Below is a transcript of that session. In many instances, because the questions couldn't be heard clearly, they are paraphrased. One question regarding Kit Kat candy bars was omitted as the response was purely visual (Paul simply posed with the Kit Kat bar for fans).
If you don't know much about Paul Gross, you might want to check out his biography and credits to get a better understanding of this versatile performer.
For new fans, please note that question #21 deals with "Call of the Wild," and contains definite 'spoilers' to the series finale.
1. How did you get into singing?
Well, I'm glad that you call it singing. I think I sort of masquerade as a singer. I don't know. I've kind of always sung. I - really, usually late at night at parties. In the shower. I have this friend of mine, David [Keeley]... you know we didn't actually set out to make a record. We were just going to write the songs, and then Jack Lenz, whom I think you've all met... he was going to produce the demos of these songs we cut. And he said - because we were going to go to Nashville to get a publishing deal. Just to write tunes. He said, 'I'll do these demos but you ought to think about making a record which seemed absurd but then we thought more about it, well, if he wants to pay for it... So that's kind of how it got started, but I guess I've always done it. And I really like writing songs. It's a lot of fun ... because they're not as hard as writing scripts ... Three minutes and it's over. A script, they take forever.
2. Are there any plans for a due South movie?
Um, there are not any plans for actively doing anything about it right now, although CTV is very interested in doing it and I think the company Alliance-Atlantis is also, so we have to talk more seriously about it. We just need a lot of money... [fans joke about how much do you need? And could they have parts?] ...We'll have to get you all in. Fly everybody to England, because I think we have to shoot part of it in London... I've had conversations with people in the BBC who were interested in it because it does so well over there, so we thought, that would make sense, we could get Fraser lost in the Queen's horse guards, running around Trafalgar Square... I-- you know, it would have to be some big romp, it would have to be on the size of the Boat Show, or, what did we call that? "Mountie on the Bounty." We always had these different names for everything. "All the Queen's Horses" was always just called the Train Show and the Boat Show and, what did we call the last one? "The Mountie Show" or something. But it would have to be a big crazy... you know, expansive thing to work as a movie. So we'll see. I mean I would like to, I think it would be great... great fun to do that.
3. How did the idea come about for the phrase 'I first came to Chicago on the trail of my father's killer..." in almost every season three episode, and was it always intended with variations on the theme or did it just evolve?
Well, it did kind of just evolve. It actually started because - somebody somewhere - at the company said - I think it may have come from PolyGram or from TNT - said that we would prefer to see in your titles some sort of precice of the show because it's very hard for people who haven't followed it all along to figure out what the hell this guy is doing wandering around Chicago. But we couldn't do anything with the titles to explain it. So I said, 'Well, I could explain it just every single show.' I'll just say 'Well, originally I came to Chicago on the trail of the killers of my father,' and I think for the first four or five episodes, I said the whole thing. And then we really, this is getting ridiculous, so we should shorten in a bit or have other people fill it in or... and that's kind of how it evolved. And then it was sort of fun each week we'd try to figure out how to make it a little bit different...
4. Someone asks about his plays in Stratford (Ontario) in the year 2000.
The Ruling Class? It's still not completely finalized that I'll be doing The Ruling Class although I - do any of you know that play? It's quite nutty. It's by British playwright Peter Barnes. I think it was written in the late sixties and it's absolutely mad. It's about this - the 13th Earl of Gurney dies and they're looking for the heir who's in a mental institution because he believes he's Jesus Christ, so... he arrives to the manor house and he is the God of love and the only effects he has is a large cross that he retreats to when he gets sort of tense. But of course the ruling class hate him because he goes around preaching love, so they deprogram him and he becomes very - like extremely right-winged, he really believes in capital punishment. And then the ruling class loves him but the only problem is he's become Jack the Ripper. But it's a wicked, wicked funny play and I probably think - Hamlet will open this season and then I'm hoping that one can open in August. I was going to do them both at the same time and then I just finished reading Hamlet again and uh, I think I'll just concentrate on that. He talks non-stop. And I don't even know what he's talking about!
[Note: In September 1999, the Stratford 2000 schedule came out and "The Ruling Class" was not listed.]
5. Would you play Superman if asked?
Sure. I've got a cape... [grins] Yeah, you know, it always depends on the script really. It's not... the idea of playing Superman is one thing. It always comes down to whether the story is terrific and if the story is terrific... A lot of those big movies aren't that much fun to do. You spend so much time kind of standing around in front of green [blue] screens and I can't imagine having made the last Star Wars. In any of the interviews you read with Ewan McGregor it must have been the most boring thing ever just talking to thin air and just waiting for them to put the computer thing in. So and some of those, you just have - I don't know - Jessica Steen was here a while ago? - She told me she talked about Armaggedon. It just sounded like - every day she'd go down to the lot and sit in her trailer and the day would go by and they'd say 'okay, go home.' They're very, very painstaking and they take a long time, but sure, if it was a good script I'd fly around.
6. How did you get involved with due South? How did you find out about it?
I was living in Los Angeles and they phoned me, my agent, and said would I be interested in doing it. The first time I didn't even read it because I wasn't interested in doing a series because you have to say you'll do it for a long time, and I guess they tried to cast it with other people, and then came back and said 'would you at least read it,' and I did and it was terrific, and that's how it got started.
7. Can you share any interesting stories about any of the three seasons?
Well, that will take a long time. Um, you know, I don't know. Every season was terrific in its own way. It was always fun to do. It was a fun show to go work on, and - for some reason, this show, right from the beginning, had a great spirit around it. A lot of other shows may be successful but they're no fun to do. You know, people have a terrible time, this one I think most people enjoyed doing. It was very fun to go to work... Had a really good heart to it, and that is really Paul Haggis. He set the tone for everything because he's so crazy, and so bald. And he'd wander around... he just had such a crazy sense of humor everything got sort of infected with it right from the beginning.
I think I knew it was going to be fun - I was doing this other show in L.A. and I had to fly up to do the pilot, to do the snow stuff - I got up to the bar in Skagway [Alaska] and Haggis was running around buying everybody Jaegermeister(sp?), rallying the troops, yelling at everyone and I turned to Gordon Pinsent and he said "ohhhhhh." [laughs] So kind of from the beginning - it was always there. Sometimes it was hard and there you were days you were filming it was just - it's just tough to do. I think when it came full circle and we were finishing off "Call of the Wild" and it was blowing around 120 kilometers and we were up on top of this hill and you could - I actually looked at Pinsent and he said "Watch this" and he just sat there [spreads out his arms] and the wind held him up. You can't really see it in the scene. The wind was blowing so hard at one point, we were trying to talk to each other, the snow was kind of completely sideways so.. But I looked at the whole crew and they're all beaming, grinning. They're shooting in the worst conditions and they're having a ball.
8. How did you feel about the Fraser and Stan's (Callum Keith Rennie) 'buddy-breathing' scene from "Mountie on the Bounty."
It was pretty good. Mind you we were underwater. [laughs] Callum's pretty sexy, isn't he? I mean - I'm straight, but even I [few words drowned out].
9. A fan wonders about the change in tone/humor detected in the last season.
You mean for the last 26 shows? I think it's just the personality of whoever's running it, but um... [smiles] Robert Lantos asked me to take the show over - to run it - to bring it back. I sat down and watched everything, and I felt the show was at it's best when it was able to try to combine a zaniness with a sort of earnest underbelly. It's very hard to do actually, it's very hard to write this kind of show. I felt in some of the seasons, in some of the shows in second season, we strayed too far into the really dark, dark area, and then it doesn't just hold up. Conversely if it gets too silly, it doesn't hold up either. There needs to be a counterbalance. So I think that's what I tried to head us towards, and obviously in a show where you're doing that many and you're doing it under that kind of schedule, some are going to be better than others. ...
I still think the template for the best one... I think that the best show ever made was the, uh... now you see I just call that Christmas bank robbery ... "Gift of the Wheelman." I think that one was terrific. That was the best of Paul's writing, and it had the best joke I've ever seen on television. 'I said elves...' [laughs] But you know what's really strange, when you're writing these things... Paul didn't really know where it was going in the beginning - the show takes a little while to work itself out, you start to discover those things that you can't finish, sort of see what the limits of the show are. And in something like Law & Order, you're going to find that out a lot more quickly. With due South with all of these elements, we could absorb almost anything. You could have a ghost, I could decode binary... and there's a great luxury in that because when you get stuck with a plot problem you say 'well, how are we going to get?' and 'well, I'll just pick up the binary...' but it also makes it very difficult to know what the limitations are, so I think it took us about probably a season and a half to start to even figure that out.
It took Paul a long time to figure that out, because when he came with the "Gift of the Wheelman," he came to me and said 'Would you read this? I've got 35 pages of it, and I have no idea whether it's any good.' And I said 'I think it's the best you've done so far. This is absolutely great, because it's crazy around the outside but the inside is very heartwarming' and trying to find that balance is difficult to do, but anyway, that's sort of where I was trying to head things, and steer off - It also should be funny. And selfishly it's more fun to do comedy. It's really fun to make the crew laugh. Or make yourself laugh. I can still see certain scenes where I know that we barely got through them we were all laughing so hard. I see - Beau - Beau could never keep it straight. The smallest little thing would send him off and we'd be a half hour in there trying to get Beau - 'Come on, Beau. You've got to be serious.' [laughs] So anyway, I hope that answers your question.
10a. What is your motivation to write? How do you do it?
I'm kind of in trouble right now. I should have been writing every single day. I think it is the hardest thing to do. You have to- you absolutely have to. Keep at it and at it and at it and at it and eventually it will start coming.
10b. Do you find yourself doodling your name...?
You know, I sit down at this computer and some days will go by and I literally won't write a word. The great thing about writing when you have a delivery schedule of a television show is you have to. And you discover that you can write very quickly when you're forced to, so the best thing to do is set yourself some kind of deadline. I'm supposed to - I say that and I've blown past the deadline. I'm supposed to have finished writing this film about curling that Robert Lantos - I've got nine wonderful pages, and need another hundred and eleven, and I've got to have them by the 16th. So I'll be leaving here. [smiles] It also happens that you may be facing something like this where I have this thing you're supposed to be writing and I actually just don't seem to be able to, because I don't have - I don't know, the angle of attack on it or something, and other films write themselves very quickly. One of the nice things about writing due South is it was - a lot of it was taken care of - you didn't have to think about the characters, you didn't have to worry about how they spoke because you kind of knew them, and I knew that no matter what I wrote down Callum would change it anyway. [smiles] So you didn't bother that much. But really, just day after day after day. Instead of scheduling, say you go for a walk at nine and between 10 in the morning is when I write.
11a. Fan says he has a sense of comedy. Is there something in your family background (re creative talent)? Did you learn it in school?
No. [grins] I don't know. No, that's not entirely true. My mother is quite creative, my father was a tank commander, so, even though he was a pacifist. Well, we have the two tanks, they're on timeshare. [smiles] I don't know. I do think part of was being an Army brat and moving around a lot, you end up having to reconfigure yourself for each place. I didn't live anywhere for much longer than a year and a half to two years at a stretch, so...
11b. So where do you find your greatest input? People you've met?
Yeah, people I've met, a lot. I used to write in bars, sit in there and just hear conversations and jot those things down, or follow people around, watch them... I don't know. I mean, because I started acting, I - I think when you're acting well, it affords you a way to have a look at how other people live in a way that no other profession can do. Writing doesn't do it either because it's very detailed. People bring you into their lives in a way that you wouldn't ordinarily ever get to meet. You'd have to live there.
I remember going to shoot a film [Buried on Sunday] in Nova Scotia. I kind of lived out in this little fishing community. Every morning I would get up at five and go out with them and they would pull in the mackerel nets because they were getting ready for lobster season, and then they would drop me off at the dock and I'd go to work on the film and then at night we'd sit around in the boat sheds drinking hot rum and they'd tell me these stories about wrecks, shipwrecks and storms and there's an intimacy that you acquire as an actor that you can't get any other way. And if you just lose your own ego for a second, you really can somebody else's life. It's a great privilege, I think, to be an actor. I don't know. [undecipherable] like Fraser, there isn't really anybody like, isn't such a guy... but I think if you're receptive to what other people's lives are, then it stimulates your creativity. Other than that, a lot of creativity is just disengaging your reason, you know. You have to just kind of let it go, sort of like athletics. It's very mystical, sorry, really very Zen like. But, really to answer your question, I have no idea where it comes from.
12. You've been quoted as saying in the press, and it's probably been misquoted, but you said about due South, "The Americans don't get it." Did you mean the humor, or the American public, or the network executives?
That was misquoted. The executives. I know, I got letters! I didn't mean the people, I meant the executives. It's a very peculiar system that television operates with and it's absolutely cut-throat, and you have to have in order to - unless the thing is a runaway hit - getting like a 20 share like E.R. - you have to have someone in the network pulling for it. And because due South came on, it went into the works when Jeff Sagansky was running CBS and then Totericci(sp?) didn't particularly want it. Les Moonves, it had nothing to do with him, he wasn't particularly anxious to pursue it. He wanted to put his own shows and his own stamp on the network, which is sort of understandable. No. So I think, I don't think there was anyone there kind of pulling for it, in part because of the politics of how it straddled regimes, but also because I don't think they really got it. The PR, the selling departments, didn't get it either, because they sort of would say to Paul [Haggis] - I wasn't really involved in any of those conversations very much but Haggis would report - he'd say 'You can't believe what they said. They said they want - it's just going to be an action show. Well, it isn't. It's got all these other things. Well, it's just going to be a buddy show. Well, it's also a cop show. Well, we'll just -- I think there's a real narrow compartmentalized approach to selling television in the United States. Unless they can brand it into one of those categories that they understand and they've sold other shows on, then they just don't know what to do with it.
So no, I didn't mean the people, although I do think that people get things differently. The humor, I've been around all over the place, from South Africa to Hamburg, Germany to London to everywhere, and everybody, each culture has a kind of different take on things. The British really get the comedy because it's out of their tradition. It's more out of the Python and the Goon show than it is out of say Seinfeld's tradition. We don't have a laugh track. It makes a difference. The Germans seem to see it as some sort of recipe - I would be asked questions by interviewers in Hamburg and they would say 'So, all people should be like this?' Okay... [grins] So anyway, it wasn't the American population.
Although before the next question.... In the first year I'd get a couple of letters from Americans who'd say 'I really like your show but I found myself laughing at it. Am I supposed to laugh?' I'd write 'Yes, it's okay."
13. If you met Fraser, what would you say to him?
[makes face] When are you gonna relax?? ... I don't know. How many hours of this ...? That's almost impossible for me to answer. There is sort of something now that it's over and I kind of look back on it, I think there's a sort of inner tension in that it would be nice just to let him take it easy, not have to carry the whole world on his shoulders, why don't you have a cup of tea?
14. Do you have any favorite playwrights?
Oh. Probably too many to mention. Right now I think the best writer working in English is Cormac McCarthy. There's a brilliant book I just finished called Blindness by Jose Saramago that I think is the best novel I've read recently. I think when I started writing, Sam Sheppard actually got me going. He was the first playwright that I read where I actually - I couldn't describe why - but I knew exactly what he was talking about. And so the first few things I wrote were really just copies. Um, but you know, Pinter, and then obviously Shakespeare. Everything actually comes from that, one way or another. Anything you do in drama is all contained somewhere in there, and it is amazing to read Hamlet again. The guy was the greatest - he can plot things better than anybody can do it today and the characters are completely there. It's extraordinary to read Hamlet out loud. I wasn't - when I was asked to do it, I sort of thought I should read it - again. And without trying to do anything, I'd wander around the house reading passages - just arbitrarily - without doing any character or anything. All this emotion starts coming out. You think 'how the hell is he doing this?' and you look back and I still don't understand how he does it. Ah yeah, Shakespeare.
15. Can you do the 'puffin face'? Where did it come from?
I don't know... I started... I think my brother and I started it. [ he does the 'puffin face' for the audience] There are all variations of them too.
16. You have mentioned that Monty Python has been an influence on his humor. What is your favorite skit or film of the Pythons?
Well, I think the Holy Grail is my favorite movie, but I think my favorite skit is that really short one with Mrs. Premise and Mrs. Conclusion. 'Busy day? Busy day? Just spent four hours burying the cat.' I think that's absolutely hilarious. I also think the argument in Holy Grail between the people who are loading whatever it is, s***, on to this cart, they have this argument about [?]. I love that stuff because it's completely whacko but very, very bright. And I can see it show up in things like 'The Boat Show' when we have that discussion about Godel's theorem. Oh, we're about to drown and we're talking about strange loops. That just makes me howl. Very funny. Although I like the slapstick stuff too. I think that stuff is delicious. And the parrot. Well, all of it really.
17a. Fan mentions early plays of Paul that dealt with father-son relationships. What was it like to have Gordon Pinsent as a father (in due South)?
Gordon is great. He's crazy, though. He's kind of Mr. Canada but he's actually ... he's completely unhinged. It was fantastic. I think he and Leslie both were very influential on the whole course of the show because they had a great influence on me. Gordon's got such a dry way of approaching things, yet it's so warm, he's such a human actor. I know that sounds weird, most actors are humans, except for ... Lincoln.
17b. Did you have input as to Gordon's character at all?
Well, yeah. He was never intended to return. But it seemed like. When we were shooting "Pilot" in Skagway, Paul and Gordon and I were sitting in a bar and I said 'This is ridiculous. You've got Gordon here, why don't we - he has to come back.' He said 'I don't think he can. He's dead.' 'He can be a ghost.' 'I'm not having a ghost in this show.' Gordon said 'well, I can come back once in a while.' 'I'm not having a ghost, shut up.' Paul's kind of good because if you keep at him a bit, we'd bug him every so often about how we need Gordon back. He'd say no, no, no. And then it was "Gift of the Wheelman," and suddenly Gordon appears in the back seat of the car and he shows me those 35 pages and it's great that we've got Gordon back and he said 'yes, I've had a good about that.' But anyway, I think it was everybody's idea in some fashion to bring back, that's how sort of the journals started and then eventually it just evolved into --
I mean, Gordon and I would have these arguments, you have to know about this, every show I'd write - or we'd write - he would call. It's Gordon on the phone. 'Well, I don't know, son. I just... I just don't feel like being comic relief.' 'Well, you are comic relief. You're living in a cabin in my closet. This isn't serious.' And he'd say 'Well, I think I should be more involved in the plot.' 'You're dead.' 'Oh, all right, I guess I'll come to work.' But it's that style of delivery, his style of acting, Leslie's style, they're very similar and I think that's why they were a great pair. They had a lot to do with the shape of the show and the tone it and how everybody approached it. Leslie's just so ... classy. In spite of being insane.
18. Which episodes are your favorites?
No, I've got lots of shows I really liked. I still really like "The Pilot." Think it's great. "Gift of the Wheelman." I think - I love the "Boat" ["Mountie on the Bounty"] just because it was so great to do. It was so much fun. We were out on the Bounty one afternoon, coming in. The sun was setting and the whole crew was way out on the yards, pulling in sails, everybody grinning like a fool, it was... spectacular. It was just fun, fun fun fun to do, and the underwater stuff was great. I liked the "Bounty Hunter," that was fun. I liked them all, all 68 of them.
19. Will you tour the USA to promote your CD, Two Houses?
We don't have any plans to. We never have any time. It's sort of a hobby that we can't really fulfill. I think we're going to Switzerland? It's insane. Switzerland and Italy, I think, at the end of August, for a few days to sing. Miss Switzerland Contest. No, we don't have plans to tour in the US, but we'll probably play some dates in the Fall in Canada anyway. If we get some time to rehearse the band. If I can remember the songs. This is the other problem.
We record them, but it's not like we play them enough publicly. We were in South Africa touring around and I was at some huge industry party. It was all record people and radio people and I got into singing the "Robert Mackenzie" and I completely forgot it. [laughs] 800 men and ...? I looked at David Keeley and he just kind of shook his head so I just had to stop, which was really embarrassing. 'I'm really sorry, I've forgotten the lyrics to the song.' He said 'Is it okay if we start it again?' and 'Oh, it would be fine' everybody said, and we started again and I forgot again. This time David was watching so he just ... Yeah, I think we've got to practice, try to remember all the words and the chords. That's the other thing. I can't remember any of the chords so I turn my guitar way down. [laughs] I keep looking over. Everybody's playing D and I'm playing B. D? I'm an amateur.
20. Articles have mentioned that Paul does quite a bit of his own stuntwork. Does any stunt scare you?
No, most of the big stunts -- Well, first of all, I had a number of doubles. Ken Quinn was the primary stuntman, Paul Rutledge also doubled me and depending on what was happening there'd be other people. I would do anything that the insurance company would let me do, and not because I'm particularly brave. It's just a lot faster. If we have to shoot a stuntman then you have to do it with four shots. If I do it, we could do it with one and that way everybody can get home earlier. And it also looks better I think if you actually see the guy doing it. Like Harrison Ford does a lot of his own stuff. It makes those movies just that much better.
The stuff that's scary is not the big stuff. Like hanging off a building, I had - you're in a harness. "Easy Money." But you wear a harness and a cable runs up along your arm, it's hidden so you can't see it and it's tied off to the building. The cable will hold up a car, so I know I'm not going to fall. Although as the wardrobe mistress said 'Sure it can hold up a car, but can it hold up your ego?' [laughs] That's really not frightening to do. The times that I did get hurt were usually in hand-to-hand fighting or running. I ran it seems non-stop. Kind of a lousy knee which will sometimes pop out. In the first year, it just collapsed underneath me as I was running down some alleyway and that hurt. Actually, where you're going to get hurt is running down firescapes and that kind of stuff, because all of the other stuff, jumping off high heights or something is really planned to within an inch of its life, or getting set on fire. You spend a lot of time preparing for them. It's the 'run from here to there' quickly stuff that's usually where you fall down.
But Ken Quinn - well, the first stunt he did when we did the first episode, I think he broke his heel. He walked around on his toes for most of the season. But the only time he really ever got hurt was at lunch. He was sitting back like this [leans back in chair] and kind of fell over, dislocated his shoulder. The only other time - the one time it did get scary when we were fighting on top of the train. Because we were supposed to be cabled-off but you can't keep turning around because the cable goes around, so we just unhooked it and shot it, and at one point I did fall and slide and was kind of hanging on by one hand when we were over on top of the bridge. I think I remember Larry McLean said 'Boy, it's the first time I saw you look really bug-eyed scared.' [laughs]
21. Fan wonders about the very ending of "Call of the Wild." Many fans like to change that ending in fan fiction. Where did it come from?
Well, I actually went around to everybody and said 'what do you think your character ought to do? We're going to try and round this off.' It was really hard to write that show, so much to try to tie over and close off so to start with it was very difficult. I don't know. I didn't really know how to end it. And I didn't want it to end like ... like it's over over. There had to be a feeling like we're going to make a couple of movies, a movie of the week, that it could be possible, and I also didn't want to kill people.
I went to the actors and said, I said to David Marciano 'where do you think you should be?' and he said 'Well, I think I should hook up with Stella.' Where do you think should go? 'I don't know, maybe retire somewhere.' I said like a shrimp shack? 'Or a bowling alley or something.' And I went to Camilla [Scott] and said 'Where do you think Thatcher ought to go?' 'She should be a spy.' It actually had a lot to do with what other people had suggested. And then I knew that I wanted Fraser to end up back north. I didn't know where Callum ought to go, but then thought, well, we could just go off and do something. I'll probably stay there, in my mind, he would have drifted back down south anyway.
And the Francesca thing. [laughs] I don't know whose idea that was. I don't even think it was hers. But it was fun to watch them shoot it. A roomful of babies... I wish there was a better explanation. It was just something that kind of came together, it wasn't really, you know, thought out. I know that sounds stupid. I know you're ending the show and you should really think it through. I don't know. It's very difficult to do. I'll do it better next time.
22. Some articles mentioned that you don't like Christmas. Can you explain why?
You do these interviews and they dog you around for years. No, there was a time when I didn't like it because it was so, uh, it seemed that everybody was worried about the cost differential. What you put out and what you get back. And I hate seeing billboards saying Rudolph the Red-Tag Reindeer or whatever. I don't like it much in the city, but since I've had kids it's actually been terrific, because now I've stopped giving - Well, actually, I cut off giving presents. I'd informed my family - this was before I was married - I informed my parents 'That's it, we're going to have Christmas where we don't give each other anything and see if it's actually fun to have Christmas, and it turned out to be fantastic because we just did stuff. Now that I have children it's fun to give them presents, but I don't go overboard. I get them one and then take it apart and then wrap each of the ... they seem to just like unwrapping things. The presents themselves are not interesting. But no, I do like it. There just was a period of time when I thought - I just don't like it at Yonge and Bloor [main intersection in Toronto].
23. Will Martha Burns be doing Stratford? And a question about "Hawk and a Handsaw" and the straitjacket.
Well, first of all, no, Martha's not going to a play. Well, we talked about it, but our kids are - it's just so complicated, we'd actually have to - because I will start rehearsing March 1st. It's too weird to pull the kids out of school. And that straitjacket, that's pretty terrifying. We weren't really, we'd get sort of tied in but loosened off enough that we could do stuff. But when we first got in it, I can't imagine spending a day in it. Pretty barbaric. And how do they get out of it? How do those magicians... ? There's got to be a way. Somebody told me you have to be able to dislocate your shoulder. [laughs] How do you practice that? I'll talk to Ken Quinn. It was pretty creepy.
There were lots of things like that. Haggis always seemed to be coming up with those weird things. A tobaggon down an escalator. A pointless gag. 'Yeah, but it was funny!'
24. General question about his movie Married in Buffalo Jump. Where was it filmed?
It is beautiful, isn't it? That's Pincher Creek. It's in the foothills. Southern Alberta. It's sort of just north of Montana. It's just gorgeous. We were there at the right time of year too, sort of late August, so all of the sun is really fantastic. And we shot as much as we could in that slanting, what they call 'magic hour'. You know Ontario 'magic hour' lasts just about a half an hour. Alberta goes on for about five hours, which is why a lot of people like to shoot exteriors out there because it's just so beautiful, and people just look great in that light. There's nothing you can do about it. You can't make people look ugly. I had a great time doing it. It was fun.
And also my part in it. I worked maybe about half as much as Wendy Crewson did. And I had a horse. And we were on the Old Man River and I had a fly fishing rig so I would finish my day and say 'See ya, Wendy,' and ride upriver and fish for trout. So it was about perfect.
One funny thing. I know that country quite well because it's not that far from my parent's ranch and I know all the back roads. I know what they're like. The film company was completely from Toronto and they said, and I said 'well, rent me a jeep or something.' They said 'we've got a good car for you' and it was a Ford Taurus and I said 'I don't know if this thing is going to make it.' And they said 'it will be perfectly fine.' So I brought it back in and it had no oil pan on it, it was blue but it was covered in mud so it looked gray, and it just hummed too. And it back to the lot [imitates noise of car]. The rental company rubbed their hands because they knew they were going to write it off. So the film company phoned and said 'You- you- you ruined that car!' I said 'No, no, I didn't actually ruin it. The roads ruined it. And I warned you about them.'
25. During due South, Canadian-American relations were 'tweaked.' Was it more critical of the US in the final season than previous seasons?
If it was, it's really not intentional. And I always felt we were equally as critical - you'd end up commenting on the United States more because it was set there, but I think we were equally critical of Canada. I don't know if critical's even the right word, it's just kind of. We take ourselves so seriously. I think it's actually rather good to just keep poking holes in the big bubble of the Canadian identity question. For God's sake, we can argue that until we die. It's just going to go on and on and on and on.
I don't think we were ever intentionally trying to be - you know it's - a lot of the tone of that actually comes from Paul, to begin with. He said we're an equal opportunity insulter. We'll go after anybody. I don't think we tried to. I think there was something a little bit funny in the tone of the last 26 shows because Callum's from Edmonton, so there's - and although I think he's a wonderful actor, and this is no criticism of his work - but there is something, you just know Beau Starr is from the States. You know he's not from Switzerland. You know he's from the States. And you just knew David Marciano was also. I think there's something just a little bit - Callum and I used to talk about it endlessly - and I think his accent's terrific and generally consistent and pretty close to the stuff we'd been listening to so ... there's something in his spirit that's different, and I think that's what the show would try to play on. It was always just easier with David because that's who he is. That aspect of the show was always easier.
I don't know. I don't think - the problem with the United States is it's so big it's easier to make fun of in a weird way. It's big, it's huge, it's expansive, it's powerful, and as a consequence ... British comedies are always making fun of Americans too. The whole world just finds that easy to do. You're the only superpower. You know, it's really not all that great to go out and make fun of Cuba. [grins] So I think probably there's just a natural inclination to lean that way a bit. It certainly wasn't conscious, if you notice that.
26. What is the weirdest mail you've ever received from fans?
I really can't repeat ... I had once some very, it was actually not from due South, but I had one from a nurse in Oslo with pictures, and a map. Should I be in the land of the Midnight Sun... We've been getting some great stuff from Russia. The one I really love is a guy said 'Your show has a big heart and a great gift. God loves generosity and I need a new pair of glasses. Here's my prescription.' With a drawing of the kind of lenses he would like and could I send them right away? [grins] Then there was a kid from South Africa who wanted - there was someone I think who wrote who wanted us to set up- 'I love your show and I'm planning to come to Canada. Please send me my tickets and organize my trip for me because I'd also like to visit Banff.' Okay. [laughs] Lots of oddballs. Really weird ones.
You must have heard about Olga and Vaselina? Yeah, I used that in the show, I think... We got a letter - a lot of these Russian ones must have been written with a Russian-English dictionary so the translation is word for word, and bizarre Some of them are so weird it sounds like Middle English, Chaucer, but one of them was, I think, 'Dear courageous king... we did not flatter you. You have been an eyesore to us these past few months to our sensory canals.' And it went on and on. A lot of it, I didn't understand. The gist of it was, they were going to be supermodels, and they were going to come and visit me, and they were from Siberia. But in the meantime, until they became supermodels, would I send them David Copperfield's address? Because he - I remember this - because 'he haunts us in the night -- in our dreams'. Signed, Olga and Vaselina. Vaselina is a pretty good name for a supermodel. They may show up, you never know. I'll hook up with this guy in his new glasses, travel in with the South African kid... [laughs].
27. Are you working on any more music CDs, besides Two Houses?
We're talking about it, yeah. I think this Fall. We have enough songs to record, we just have to... just have to remember the chords. Got to remember those before going to the recording studio.
28a. What is it like working with Dean McDermott and Camilla Scott?
[deadpan] It's just horrible. [smiles] Horrible people. And they're so talentless... Well, they're funny because Camilla likes to really stick to what she's got, you know, to the words... and Dean... [laughs] you have to tie Dean down. He's just... when we were shooting "Call of the Wild," we were in that outdoors scene out by the campfire. It was pretty cold and Dean came out with this outfit on that had this hairnet thing and he had -- he'd been shaving so he had a little cut, and he had a little bit of Kleenex on the cut. He said 'how's this?' Yeah, it' okay, just don't do any, don't do anymore. Don't change it.' He came back about a half hour later. He had six different Kleenex. I'm like 'No, Dean, too much, too much.' But he has great, great instincts for comedy. He's extraordinary. That feather-duster stuff. You have to know that a lot, a lot of the stuff is his. We didn't write that stuff. He'd just come up with that stuff. The plate of spaghetti. ["Easy Money"]
28b. Question about "Asylum," and Dean and Callum watching curling in that episode.
That curling scene made me laugh too. 'You want to fight? [laughs] 'Over curling??' It's very funny. Dean's so great at that. I think half of it is he's so big, I mean he's a big guy and very athletic, but stick him in a great big suit and his boots. Have you seen his feet? They're like [stretches out hands]. He could walk across the English Channel. You get him in that big uniform and he's acting sort of like a small guy. He's just hilarious. The curling stuff. That was one of those ones in danger of getting away on us ...
They are great to work with. Camilla is wonderful. I mean she's... right from the beginning I thought this was perfect because I didn't know Camilla really. I didn't see the show Crazy for You. I knew of her but I hadn't really seen her work and then... the first day, I think we did her angle of when she fired me. It was the first shot that that we had. And I hadn't really been there. I said hi. They lit the scene and she said 'You're fired.' Oh, this is great! And Dean was just a joy. That was one of Paul Haggis' invention. He just got out. I love that - It was one of the Christmas ones where I got beaten up ... ["Good for the Soul"] and he had that song? This is how these weird things happen. He'd written a little bit of it. He had one line, I had a two lines or three lines. Anyway, we had enough to just make it for the scene, even though it wasn't supposed to be in the scene. He came up and said 'I think this should, I've got this big hat, I think I should sing this song.' 'Oh, okay, that's a good idea.'
Then we were asked to do this track for a charity CD for the Special Olympics, and I'd just thought we'd do a, you now, Silent Night or something. And they said 'no, no, we want you to do that Santa track.' It's not written! ... So then Jay Semko and I - that song is on that record - actually I think it played fairly well down in Tennessee. [laughs] It was great. I called Dean from studio - we recorded it at Reba McEntire's studio, it was like a palace, you know, we had all these great musicians on it, and this guy, Rick Giles, who's a songwriter and also a backup singer and player, he came in to sing some of the backup tracks, and he listened to what we'd done so far and he said 'Wow, that's really, really good. I mean, it's stupid. [affects Southern accent] And don't get me wrong, we sit around the writers' rooms all day long trying to write something that stupid.' It's good. And that's Dean's song. The dumb song... He's got no dignity, this person. He'll do anything.
29. It must have been fun to work with both David Marciano and Callum Keith Rennie. Could you comment on both men?
Well, I never did buddy-breathing with David... so I maybe don't know him as intimately. [grins] You know, it's sort of an obvious question because you see the differences so drastically, when you're working on it, it's like another actor and it's someone who is your partner. And they're just totally different people. Completely different backgrounds, completely different approaches to the world...
Ironically, both of them had substance abuse problems in the past. Both David and Callum, so there was that common thread, but I guess I only ever work with people who just got out of rehab [jokingly]. But no, they're really completely different, and their approaches to acting is completely different so that you know, it takes a while to find the rhythm of an actor. It took David and I a long time, actually, because we really come from such different places as actors. It was a little quicker for Callum and I, but then it was organized slightly differently too.
The first episode we shot, the one 'Asylum', the curling - which is why his hair looks so weird. Like it looked really normal... [laughs] But that was his choice. He said 'What should my hair be?' and I said 'It can be anything but peroxide blond,' which it was at the time, and 'it can't stand completely straight up.' By the end, of course, it stood completely straight up. Uh, Callum is much more of a - they were very similar actors in the sense it was completely instinctive. Neither of them had a whole lot of technique. They both had troubles with lines. They really had to work at them to remember them. ... But it's kind of like asking someone to compare a BMW and a Porsche. They're equally great cars but they're just different. The one thing I will say, Callum - David's sort of a stumblefoot, so doing stuntwork, he'd try to limit it, whereas Callum you really could toss out of an airplane - and he wouldn't notice it.
30. Will you do something that will show up in the US?
I don't know. They probably will sell this movie [The Judas Kiss] they just finished shooting - they haven't finished cutting it yet - but I imagine it will air down there somewhere . ... Um, and there are just a couple of other things I can't really talk about, but they may be down there.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Paul concludes the session, as he had to leave, stating 'It's so weird. You make these shows and you never think - people do write so you occasionally - so you do get that sense that it's making some of connection to people somewhere but this has just been extraordinary. I've never been around anything like it. It's very moving. Because you make these sort of in a vacuum. You never see these people in their homes watching it... And when you're doing them, you hope that they make a difference to people, that you're not doing it for no reason, just to fill up space on TV. And the show had such a special spirit to it. I'm sorry I stopped it. But we'll do some movies.'
Finis