A Crash Course in Swashbucklery and Fisticuffs!

I started acting at a very early age, running around the forest near my family's cottage re-enacting scenes from The Princess Bride and Star Wars. Recently I decided that as a PROFESSIONAL ACTOR, I should take all steps necessary to prepare myself for the inevitable day I'm on set and someone expects me to be able to convincingly have a sword-fight.

Trying to look cool while catching my breath. PHOTO CREDIT: Erin Gerofsky

 Thus! Early in May I signed up to do a two-week intensive introduction to stage combat run by York University and taught by some of the wonderful humans from the stunt crew Riot Act. In the course, you learn the basics of sword, quarterstaff, and unarmed combat for stage and screen – and rehearse three fight scenes choreographed by the instructors. At the end of the two weeks you perform them, and if the adjudicator thinks you were convincingly badass enough, you pass, and get to put “can swordfight” on your acting resume.

The "Peking Opera" stance. PHOTO CREDIT: Erin Gerofsky

Every morning started off with a “warm-up.” It’s not a warm-up. It’s just a 45 minute workout that any other day I’d consider more than enough physical activity for one day. Ten minutes of non-stop calisthetics! Then run around the room a couple times! Now backwards! Now do a bunch of aikido rolls! Now do eleventy seven crunches! Now do some different weird crunches where you’re also doing yoga! All this and more – it was deadly but incredibly effective, and as someone who often ‘forgets’ to do core exercises it was a really great reminder how important they are.

This is a very awesome looking backwards aikido roll. Trust me. PHOTO CREDIT: Erin Gerofsky

Then, the scenes. Our unarmed fight was a scene from the Benecio Del Toro / Tommy Lee Jones movie The Hunted. I got to roundhouse a dude, choke a dude out, get tossed across the room and land in a roll – and knock a dude to the floor using my favourite move, what I like to call the “Captain Kirk Punch” – the two-fisted hammer-punch to the back, the core principle of Starfleet Martial Arts!

The quarterstaff scene was haaaaaard. I’ve had to do some unarmed stuff on screen before (I got slapped on Renegade Press, punched a couple times on Falcon Beach, etc) but I’ve never handled anything like a staff. Instead of being given dialogue for that scene our assignment was to build our own scene around the choreography and music we chose ourselves. My partner and I, of course, chose Europe’s The Final Countdown. Somehow our scene evolved into me playing an overbearing manager of a doweling factory (hence the staves) and my partner playing a lowly subordinate whose had enough of my hogging the radio in the storeroom. It was hysterical, even included several yells of “FINAL COUNTDOWN!!!” in the place of “HA-YA!”

"I cannot live in a world where you have everything and I have nothing." Loved this scene. PHOTO CREDIT: Erin Gerofsky

The sword scene was by far my favourite. We were taught basic rapier swordfighting, and the choreography was set to the dialogue from the climactic duel in The Count of Monte Cristo (Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce do a fantastic version of that fight in the 2002 version). I got to play Fernand Mondego! I loves me a bad guy! I think my favourite move from that fight was something called “the Angelo” where I swatted the Countess’ blade aside with my off-hand and passed my own sword behind my back to bring her on point. So cool! So cool.

Thankfully I managed to pass! I can definitely put “can swordfight” on my resume – and I had a ton of fun, so hopefully soon I’ll have reason to call upon those skills! I’d recommend this course to any actor wanting to expand their special skills (and get a kick-ass two weeks of working out as a bonus!)

Barberianism 2012: Blogging About Haircuts

So, I got a haircut last Thursday. This was a big deal.

I'm an actor, and therefore have kind of a strange relationship with my own body. Since I've got a current headshot that presents me to casting directors with a certain 'look', I can't really deviate from that look lest I walk into an audition and present a different product than casting is expecting. Getting a significantly different haircut means I'd have to drop a couple hundred bucks on new pics. Since I only get new shots every couple years or so, I'm pretty locked into a certain look for that period. This can get a little insufferable - occasionally it can feel a little bit like I don't actually own my own face.

When I wrapped on Stage Fright, my hair was reeeal long. Like, significantly longer than my headshots - in the movie I'd essentially been playing a guy that's supposed to be a Disney Prince (thanks for buying me as that, casting!) and flowing locks just made sense. However, when I'd got back from shooting I really wanted to get back to a shorter cut. I'd also just recently seen the movie Beginners, which, in addition to being a fantastic drama, features Ewan MacGregor with a totally rad haircut.

Rad haircut, Obi-Wan. Photo Credit: Beginners - copyright Alliance Films

I really wanted this haircut. Like, intensely. It was weird, as this wasn't the first time I'd wanted a Ewanspired haircut. The first occurrence ended in disaster around the time Episode II came out, leading me to have the nickname "Mulletor" throughout the spring of grade eleven. Maybe there's some kind of mystic connection between me and Ewan MacGregor's hair - more likely it had something to do with the fact that, due to headshots and it working pretty well for me, I've had vaguely mid-length 70sesque hair for close to 6 years and I was wanting a change. Erin's encouraging "yeeeeahs" every time I mentioned maybe getting that new haircut also probably helped - and, even more perfect, it was modern and different, yet only ever so slightly different than my current look.

So, after confirming with my agent that taking a little more off that back and sides didn't constitute an extreme makeover, I took the plunge. I figured, hey, it's December, the industry slows down anyway, it'll have grown the inch or so back to normal by pilot season. Despite this, I was still a little worried - change, even subtle change, is scary when it's tangentially related to your profession. I walked into my barber with more than a hint of trepidation.

My barber, Jason, is hilarious. An ex-pat Brit who's cut hair in Toronto's Yorkville district since the mid-eighties, sitting in his chair is consistently a laugh and a half - the man wears a tie and a fake ocelot tail to work. He invented a sound-reducing 'pillow hat'. Comedy all around. He was very surprised to see me more than once in four months - but quite excited to see me try something a little different after giving me the same haircut for years.

As the tufts fell from my head it was glorious. Jason asked if we needed to take a little bit more off the back, if we were "really committed." I responded "do it" as if ordering a nuclear strike. May god help me.

After it was all over, I was real happy. As I ran my fingers through the back of my head and looked in the mirror, I felt super confident. It felt like a really subtle change that didn't compromise my look...

...then I got an audition that Monday. Suddenly, all my doubts flew back to me. "Oh noooooes!" I thought. I'm gonna walk in and they're gonna be all like 'What did you dooooooo?!?!' and I'm never gonna work in this town again! Visions of having to explain myself and my crazyhair flew through my head the whole weekend as I prepped.

As I walked into casting on monday, I braced myself for accusations of unprofessionalism.

Casting didn't mention it once. Of course. Nothing, not even in passing - audition went super smoothly. All that worry for nothing. Actors are weird, sometimes.

Long story short, sweet haircut, bro. Also, the audition went pretty well!

Now all I need is to get some implants on my (mostly beardless) face so I can physically grow some bitchin' sideburns. That'd be rad.

Intense. Photo Credit: Erin Gerofsky

Shameless Plugs: An Excerpt From "Roomies"

Welcome to the first edition of Jetpack Wonder Stories' feature Shameless Plugs, where I blatantly talk about work I'm doing and why you should watch / buy / eat all of it. This week, I'm taking a look at a delightful short film I did about a month ago - Insomniac Productions' Roomies.

Let's start at the beginning. Throughout August and September of this year I was out of the city up in Parry Sound, Ontario, shooting a yet-to-be-released feature film called Stage Fright. More on that closer to its release when I'm no longer under the threat of spoiling anything! Anyway - whilst shooting this feature I met a strapping young man named Kent Nolan, who, in addition to having starred in a couple Terry Gilliam movies, makes me feel like I've accomplished nothing with my life. This is mostly because he and two of his creative partners have recently started up a production company and were about to embark on shooting their first short!

Somehow, I convinced this lunatic that I would be a good fit for the lead role in the aforementioned short film. Without even reading for the part! The fool. The fool.

Me preparing for a shot, with producer/A.D. Katherine Barrell and cinematographer Christine Buijs.

Though technically a short film, Roomies is actually 7 minutes of a feature film script Kent has been developing on-and-off since he was sixteen. A raucous comedy in the style of Superbad, the movie follows "three down on their luck friends [on] a wild twelve hour adventure when [they're] forced to gather a large sum of money to pay their crazed, drug dealing landlord." Sounded like fun to me! I got to play Brandon, the apparent moral compass of the group (as far as I can tell, from the first ten minutes of the movie). Kent and Insomniac Productions made the excerpt, along with two other shorts over the course of three days in order to put together a demo reel to apply for BravoFACT funding. I sincerely hope they get it, because their projects are all fantastic and they're a wonderfully talented bunch.

The shoot was an absolute blast and a ton of fun. This script was hysterical, and I got to work with Kent again, who is a totally rad dude and did a fantastic job directing this short. Directorial debut! I also got to work again with Melanie Leishman (of Stage Fright and Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, who I oddly enough in real life also went to high school with), who played Brandon's high school crush Jenny.

The excerpt takes place at a big party, which is always a crazy time ("Look like you're having fun! But don't talk!") but thankfully Kent and co. bought a prop keg that could turn into a real keg once we wrapped. Good times.

Kent Nolan, Katherine Barrell, and Jono Logan, the producers and the brains behind Insomniac.

 The short is totally hysterical, and can be viewed here on Vimeo, right now! Do it! And, if you like it, check out Insomniac's other shorts and their Indiegogo campaign, which is trying to raise ten percent of their budget to shoot a proof-of-concept pilot for their "Entourage meets Girls, but Canadian" comedy, Issues.

These guys are awesome, make sure to check them out. And me, in the short! In case you missed them, here are those links again!

"An Excerpt from Roomies" on Vimeo 

www.insomniacproductions.ca