Stanislavsky meets Waldo at Hollywood and Vine.

Ever heard the phrase "there are no small parts, only small actors?"

 

This is usually attributed to Konstantin Stanislavsky, the Russian progenitor of Method Acting, or Czech novelist Milan Kundera if you really want to get academic about it.

 

Alternatively, if you care to laugh at the expense of vertically-challenged thespians, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, and even Kevin Hart, fit the bill for cheapshot anecdotes. For the rest of us working actors, those words offer solace when the size of our roles requires ... um, full focus.

With that in mind, channel-surfing becomes not so much a U.K. watersport, but a prescription for missing some "Where's Waldo" moments, such as these, featuring our very own Ackeelover as Waldo incarnate.

For starters, promotion is in full shwing for "Working The Engels," a hilarious new Global/NBC, half-hour sit-com, starring Andrea Martin. Look for me as "Jeb Peters" in what is likely to be the 4th or 5th episode to air.

You'll excuse the cheeky selfie-spoiler. Use it as motivation to watch.

 

Vigilance for me as "Lang" in episode 2 of "The Strain" will be more of a challenge. Have your popcorn and beer readily at hand before settling in for this new FX drama. However, until it becomes available on your local network, this visual-aid from my dressing-room prep will tick some boxes. 

 

Sit-com? Check. Drama? Check. Time for a movie don't you think?

Enter "Bobby" in the UPTV original "Apple Mortgage Cake," due this Easter. The winsome and talented Kimberly Elise, latest addition to my growing list of screen exes, stars in this inspiring true story of Angela Logan, who admirably bakes away a life-crisis.

 

I'm not sure how, or if, an iPhone selfie relates to classical Method theory, but I'm happy to have technology for proof that Waldo and Stanislavsky do meet at the intersection of ego and career.

 

Or Hollywood and Vine. Just don't ask me what to call actors with small parts, ok. I wouldn't know.

 

Parables Of Riddick.

Installment three of the Riddick juggernaut opens today. The Vin Diesel publicity machine is in overdrive, selling a labor-of-love that's been soon come long time. Vin has fast and furiously found time to service other projects in the intervening period. I see in the society columns this includes starting a family. Nice.

Vin's navel-string connection to the Riddick mythic remains his most personal. My own brush with this franchise-of-the-moment remains resonant with me too - nine years after the Universal extravagance of The Chronicles Of Riddick.

Director of both films David Twohy, a man with the air of a New England rambler, makes a noteworthy foil to Vin's engagingly temperate braggadocio. By my observation, he's a Science Fiction fan. Casting for Chronicles was an intuitive process to the point where we were encouraged, in between gym visits, to name our own characters. Previously nameless lifer-convicts in the middle third of a sprawling, futuristic, extra-planetary adventure.

I called my guy Sniper. The unthinkable Washington D.C. shooting mayhem was recent memory. I stole the vacant soul of Jamaican born Lee Boyd Malvo for backstory. Director comments in my DVD extras keep that angle alive for me, despite much of the screen evidence falling by the way.

I'll have no spoilers on the new Riddick 'til I see it, so read on without fear. The Crematoria arc was very time-consuming to shoot but we got some stunning otherworldly footage. Backlot security was tight but there was a controlled stream of visitors. Like Vin's sis, his mom and kids belonging to Vin's twin bro.

One special day I had my own daughter with me. Coming back from lunch there was an unexpected gathering on our working soundstage, but all film-making activity had ceased. Vin's bullhorn baritone led cast and crew in a Birthday serenade, surprising her, and me, with sixteen candles in a cake. This raised the bar for such milestones in my neighborhood.

Riddick keeps good company. I had camaraderie with Judi Dench, Thandie Newton, Alexa Davalos, Keith David, Colm Fiore,Yorick Van Wageningen and others, while working among a filial cadre of local performers enjoying the bombastic profile of high-level production. It was here, during the hurry-up-and-wait interstices, that I tasted rare humility in Scrabble, which vied with Poker for pastime of choice.

Not to mention Snoop (then) Dogg hit-up da after-party in L.A.

Vin gifted me a VHS copy of Multi-Facial, his first short film. It features a diamond performance from an actor with more versatility than some recognize. You get the feeling he could do virtually anything with direct efficiency, power and charm. Like the best of America's husky heroes.

Makes me wanna send Riddick to go Rambo on Syria.

Win. From the pen of Pin.

To say Winston Rekert (1949-2012) had a big life before he met me is a self-centered way to start this remembrance, but the times I worked with Win altered the tone for what has become my life.

In fact, he was one of the first cultural touchstones I identified in my early years in Canada. Before I knew what all the fuss was with this Wayne Gretzky guy, I was ardent about Adderley.

Win's charismatic presence and sense of humor overcame the limitations of a nascent local television industry and made him cool enough to want to emulate. Canadian, yet still, more.

When I met Win in that hotel audition-room I remember being star-struck, but felt little pressure. Odd to say, but I felt as though it was he who knew me 'cos I watched his show.

 

As it happened, this was a threshold to my personal reinvention.

Neon Rider legend has it that it was Win who ammended my character, conceptually, from a Latino named "Chico" to a Jamaican called "Pin." I will always applaud that foresight.

What other show would encourage my Jamaican accent, hand me a cricket bat, dress me in black with a Lion Of Judah emblazoned on my back, run me against Ben Johnson and let me grow dreadlocks on TV over five seasons?

(Bizarre perhaps, but I been lookin' fi anadda gig like dat since.)

I didn't see too much of the hype-side that Win loved - never even sat in the Ferrari or the Lincoln, but I did know his fatherly, and dedicated, thoughtfulness. There were many hours spent in a defunct North Vancouver gym with Win and trainer Dave, learning how to improve myself through physical effort.

Win moved seamlessly from stage to screen to directing, to teaching - passionate as ever, this was the role in which I most recently saw him. His class was enacting a Neon Rider theme and I went along for the day. I happily recall that this exists somewhere on video. Maybe we did get our sequel after all.

His longtime brother and symbiotic crony, Danny Virtue, says Win gave half the people in Vancouver's film industry their start. If you consider the intangible "ripple effect," I'd say Danny makes a very conservative estimation.

Winston Rekert had a big life after I last saw him too, and by all accounts he had battled his cancer nobly and bravely.

 He was most definitely loved and his legacy liveth.

... Chevron 7.7 ...

... it's a truism to be sure, but one of the things you gotta do to maintain a career in the public eye is to, well,  appear in the public's eye from time to time ... and I don't mean grocery shopping or a mid-day stroll down Main Street ...

... one could conspire to get nabbed running a traffic signal on Sunset Boulevard reeking of rum, or marry conspicuously with a seventy-two day divorce sequel to slam the dunk, but there are safer ways to rack up stage-time and tally a twitter following ... look no further than actors who've played science-fiction characters ... we, as a species, needn't delve into the charade chest of cheap trix - provided there's no objection to venturing into the lion's den to meet 'n' greet the fanbase ...

... the cool thing about this is that fandom is no respecter of borders or division, chapters of sycophantic adulators spring up everywhere on the globe, perhaps even beyond some say ... and for the most part, the rank-and-file fan is a big-hearted afficionado of the genre who has the chutzpah to bring the proverbial mountain to Mohammed ...

... and move mountains they do ... calling them Conventions, cash is pooled, hotels are inveigled, dealers enticed, punters wooed ... the carrots-on-the-stick are us, performers who've brought characters to life by lending ourselves to the cosmos, and the cause ... on this occasion Northampton, England plays host ...

... there's no call to wear costumes off set ... truth be known, actors don't own 'em anyway and the attendees don't need the competition for their own sartorial creativity ... the interest is in the encounter, the photo-op, the collectormania and camaraderie when common interest binds an admixture of personalities ...

... with judgementalism at minimum, everyone is free to express passions ... whether it's adolescent idolatry, gratuitous hugging, sharing a preferred song with anyone who'll listen, playing Pied Piper to a string of gents while coquettishly sporting sexy new knee-high boots, or paying tribute to fictitious aliens by dressing up and acting out until the bar closes, the field is wide open ...

... but, apart from the common colds which get communicated and the odd hangover proliferated for posterity by phone-cams, there is usually no safer arena for runaway individualism ...

... engaged celeb guests get the most out of such a milieu too ... ego value is inestimable but if you don't take yourself too seriously and can walk the fine line between madness and mission, you'll be able to pull off anything ... I found humility when faced down by a young woman with a soccer ball seemingly glued to her feet, and only regained my pride by rocking a party with judiciously selected oldies, remixes and reggae (from a hard drive that goes everywhere with me for just this purpose) ...

... satisfaction with my own DJ-ing would have been enough to provide a fitting punchline to this exercise in shameless self-promotion had I not been comprehensively upstaged that same afternoon by a macho, mind-reading monkey named Chico ...

... but that's another story for another day ...

... beneath "The Skin" ...

... they have fangs, suck blood, creepy-crawl or fly by night,

dress in cloaks, sleep by day, shy from crucifixes on sight,

they fascinate us and seem to be everywhere of late,

books... TV... on Halloween they may even appear at your gate ...

... folkloric characters are found in all world cultures and there's a wide variety to choose from in Caribbean societies populated by slave descendants who have commingled African traditional beliefs with those of European origin, resulting in some pretty gruesome geo-specific ghouls ... known collectively in the region as jumbies or duppies ...

... with such a rich heritage of mythical demons it's somewhat surprising that there isn't more overt usage of demonology in modern Caribbean artforms ... such folklore is largely consigned to oral tradition of countryfolk, archives of heritage traditions, underfunded cultural festivals and nostalgic mention ...

... enter one intrepid husband and wife filmmaking team lending their initials to HAMA productions of Antigua ... HAMA developed a feature-film script centred around the drama that ensues when the dormant malevolence of a Soucouyant is aroused, terrorizing residents of the post-colonial tropical isle ... the small but growing local film industry benefits from those of us with experience in the filmworld at large, and on this fourth HAMA effort, it was a rewarding experience to have assisted in the preparation of the two leading players ...

... yours truly, as the sleazy Detective Morgan, along with Jamaica's eminent Carl Bradshaw (The Harder They Come, The Lunatic, Third World Cop) and Britain's Jeff Stewart (The Bill, Dr. Who) as an obeah man and opportunistic yachtie respectively, add weight to a cast of colorful local performers, many gracing the screen for the first time ...

... the result is an entertaining supernatural thriller-with-a-difference entitled The Skin, a reference to the specific habits of the (female evil-entity) Soucouyant, known by variable but similar pronunciations and other names throughout the diasporic carry-beyond (Caribbean) ...

... just as it takes a community to raise a child, so too the processs of making a film, particularly in places where the infrastructure is embryonic ... The Skin benefits from skills brought by Howard University's Professor S. Torriano Berry who held the camera and augmented the crew with his film students eager to combine an island getaway with an on-set practicum ...

... quid pro quo deals, deferred payments and "favoured nations" arrangements to use scenic locations, combine to lift this one off the page ... actual filming was intense but not without its lighter moments to mitigate early mornings and late nights ...

... well received at an incubatory screening for the Caribbean Tales film cognoscenti in Barbados this spring, The Skin was to premiere at last month's Reggae Film Festival in Jamaica but organizational cross-wiring, of the sort that too often undercuts effort in this region, meant that the grand unveiling took place last week in front of an appreciative home crowd in Antigua ...

... things have a way of working out as they properly should - part of the pervasive mysticism that governs life in the Caribbean ...

... the Apophis agenda ...

... when you score a part on a television series you don't necessarily expect it to run for ten seasons, spawn spin-offs or become part of popular culture ... you can wish for it, yes, but it's advisable not to bet the farm on runaway success ... however, science-fiction serials often go viral and achieve immortality in unexpected ways, like Star Trek and the mega-movie franchise Star Wars ... so, my lengthy involvement as Apophis in the Stargate phenomenon had both precedent and portent ...

... being cast as the grand nemesis, successor to the flamboyant Ra character played by Jaye Davidson in Stargate-the-movie, promised a measure of singularity, not just owing to extravagant make-up, "Mickey Mouse" ears, killer bling and golden costumery, but also a virtual exemption from absolute vanquishment ...

... these days, well into episodic syndication (a fancy way of saying re-runs), it occurs to us we never actually saw him die but assumed his demise based on the predicament leading up to the fireball thought to have consumed him ... in the tradition of Elvis sightings, reports of the death of Apophis seem greatly exaggerated, and there has proven to be quite an afterlife for this pompous false God ... the identification in 2004 of an orbiting asteroid with a statistical potential to collide with planet Earth has raised the spectre of this resurgent villain once again ...

... the astronomers who named this threat after my character, David Tholen and Roy Tucker, are Stargate fans only too familiar with the predictably unpredictable re-appearances of Apophis ... a pattern mirrored by this inter-galactic rock that resembles a huge Irish potato or a flaming Idaho super-spud ...

... calculations have Apophis close enough to Earth in 2012 to make better observations, but not close enough to counteract any Tea Party tilt at the American Presidency ... some likely gravitational adjustment in 2029 makes 2036 the year to ditch those insurance policies and have your bucket lists completed ...

... even Dick Cheney's successors, Blackwater and the mighty U.S. military would have to bow to Apophis ... the Russians, not trusting NASA projections that put most of the former Soviet Union under the asteroid's trajectory, want to pre-emptively shoot it down or deflect it over Washington, Waco or Wasilla ... they may only succeed in making Apophis really mad ...

... knowing Apophis like I do (I remain one of this world's foremost experts on the mindset of this persistent antagonist), I can safely state; Apophis will not throw the babes out with the bathwater ... before unleashing Armageddon he'll most likely take a sampling of Tau'ri (read Earthling) womankind as tithe or entitlement, to play Caligula while amassing an army or two on some distant planet in preparation for a future assault ...

... meanwhile, ever since the great civilisations of ancient Egypt, his mythology builds to crescendo ... there's even contemporary reasoning that the coming of Apophis was predicted in The Bible, and all sorts of creative souls continue to pay homage via artwork like this ethereal representation from a fan named Renee ...

... if the unthinkable happens, and the force that is Lord Apophis returns, riding on a baked potato to wreak havoc on the world which repeatedly frustrated him on televisions across the known universe, we can't say we weren't amply warned ... a penultimate twist-in-the-tale perhaps, is seen in this impact-rendering by the coincidentally named NASA-affiliated artist Don E. Davis ...

... I suspect that, somewhere, the late actor Don S. Davis, who portrayed Stargate Command's General Hammond helping to repel the early attacks of Apophis, would chuckle at the irony ...

... apres destructo cinema ...

... can't swear to it but I'm fairly certain this happens from time to time where you live too ... when the going gets tough, the tough go to the movies ...

... with Haiti on the mind and the perpetual high stakes of this complex existence we are a part of, screen fantasy can offer a pressure-release valve, a chance to visit another dimension or the illusion of one ... to breathe in a popcorn-scented, climate-controlled change from routine and limiting existences ... this is true even if the world you are transported to is post-apocalyptic ... or an imaginary, ex-planetary one ...

... I've got news for The Brothers Hughes ... if your story is set in a time following a great manifestation of pestilence or destruction ... and, you style the look of your film in the dusty tradition of Mad Max, you court the tag "post-apocalyptic" ... and, if you construct the sets to be reminiscent of wild-western towns, saloon, shoot-out street, head-'em-off-at-the-pass buzzard's-eye P.O.V. and all, then we will see cowboys and sheriff badges ... jus' so it go ... but why not?, these are genre choices which don't preclude the result being enjoyable ....












... so, when my son said he had strong thoughts of me as he watched The Book Of Eli, and really wanted to know what I thought of it, I was intrigued but thought better of digging too deep for fear of spoilers ...















... what I encountered at the cinema shortly thereafter was a seductively drab futuristic High Plains Drifter ... on foot ... but that wasn't all, this take on the doomsday scenario is as crisply conceived in its sense-of-self as any that preceded it within the genre, the difference here for me was in the pulse ...

... the broadly drawn, unhurried story developments liberated space between the superhero moments ... allowing time to luxuriate in the visuals and decide how to ... or whether to ... suspend disbelief around the nagging questions and doubts which are inevitable when the baddies are so mindlessly led by malevolence and negativity, to no relatable end ...

... my choice for saviour in this case is the consistently deft craftsman Denzel Washington, who walks the unlikely middle ground between Clint Eastwood and New York Governor David Paterson ... my turn with Vin Diesel et al in The Chronicles Of Riddick gave me first-hand exposure to how an actor manoeuvres behind permanent eyewear ... so, after watching, I can with some confidence, endorse Denzizzy as a past master of the art ...

... the "apres destructo" theme is worth a thought in these times ... so too are the psycho-spiritual constructs which inform the specifics of human morality and conduct ... it's a recipe for success if filmmakers can marry popular entertainment to a contemplation of higher calling ... hence the zen-cool, quick-draw defense of the Christian cornerstone enriches Eli in the same way James Cameron's paleo-astral metaphor for environmental responsibility has turned Avatar into his, and the world's, biggest grossing film ... in effect sinking the Titanic one more time ...














... the strong suit here is the scale and scope of Cameron's effort of course, more an indicator of where we are going than where we have been ...

... the vividly realized world of Pandora is rivalled in this film by subtexts in the shooting script ... the hardly veiled twin-threat of oppression and exploitation have the same familiar feel to them now as they had at the start of the previous decades ... if it is accepted that art mimics life then surely we must interpret the truths at the heart of this blockbuster statement as a cinematic challenge to make adjustments ...

... Jake Sully makes significant moves in his character arc, rejecting the part of himself that was obsolete and embracing that which was concealed behind "cultural" barriers ... why concealed, by whom and for what purpose, is for a different post ...










... "avatar" will become a common word I predict ... first used, then over-used and eventually mis-used, but Earth is our Home Tree and, in the absence of readily available alien life-forms, we get the chance to be our own avatars and merge with our fellow inhabitants ...

... I think that's essentially what Eli's book is trying to tell us too ... and, I must have gotten it across to my son at some point ... or maybe I just remind him of Denzel  ... ;-) ...

... welcome to Parkdale! ...

... I've had opportunities to be part of many different types of projects in my time as an actor ... I can attribute much of that blessing to a combination of good fortune, genetics and effort ...

... oftentimes I'm questioned as to whether I fear the dreaded "typecasting"... my responses alternate between the flippant "bring it on!," or a post-Jerry Maguire "show me the money!," and the quizzical, mild annoyance of a "whaddyamean, which type are you referring to?" ... I've come to believe this is related to my personal flava, hybrid accent and mannerisms ...

... y'see, my personal blend of youth and age, public and private schooling, urban and rural upbringings, "dread" and "baldhead" influences, Jamaican and Canadian world citizenships, isn't usually the character description in the casting breakdowns, yet happily, I've managed to play a few variations on this theme ...

... and then there are the rare, though not entirely unique, instances when a role gets crafted toward the mongrel in me ...









... the initial phone call was innocuous enough ...

... my friend Michele and her filmmaker cousin Frances-Anne had a really talented cast, a concept and a plan, plus the fortitude to combine them ... they proposed adding me to play the central character Gene Wright, a well-meaning social worker with challenges and shortcomings of his own ...

... the open aperture beckoned, and before long I was deep in development-workshops on the grittier end of Queen Street West, a place with notable population history and not enough to show for it ... welcome to Parkdale and long days spent brainstorming, improvising scenarios and bonding into a tight unit ... a workably representative cross-section of contemporary black Toronto ...







... collectively we evolved a living script ... the contribution from each player inhabits the textured nuances of the final product ...

... veteran turns from the remarkable Leonie Forbes, a versatile Jamaican treasure who had previously played my grandma in Soul Survivor (1995), and Dennis "Sprangalang" Hall - an avuncular Trini-icon, grounded the film in bridge-building territory by commanding respect up and down the English-speaking Caribbean and its extensive diaspora ...

... younger cast members, particularly the rising talent of Michael Miller, gave everything of themselves to infuse the piece with G.T.A. street-realism and anchor the story firmly in the context of urban North America ...





... the workshopping and rehearsal journey was rewarded by a sell-off, limited-run stage-production lauded for its intelligent use of minimal material resources ...

... the rich, sincere, non-sensational storytelling, around issues the Caribbean-Canadian family are only too familiar with, ensures the humanizing of every character and makes A Winter Tale compelling insight for broader audiences ...

... having engaged with focus-groups, community screening-forums, university and school groups of various ages, far-flung film festival folks, regular-release houses and even a non-West Indian audience at a police-sponsored showing in a charming Calgary, Alberta rep-house, I'm convinced Frances-Anne Solomon's direction accomplished its intent ... namely, a story reflective of social conscience and relevance, eschewing much of the self-consciousness sometimes found in this vein ...













... from this actor's p.o.v. there's no downside to socially-relevant credits on a resume ... I experienced a singularly organic process in making this film, binding camaraderie, splashy-bashy openings in Toronto, New York, Port Of Spain, St. John's, Antigua, and the particularly sweet irony of seeing my own largeness on the screen at the Carib Theatre in Kingston, Jamaica where I'd watched so many double-bills as a yout' ...

... A Winter Tale ... http://www.awintertale.ca/ ... has won some honors and much acclaim along the way, and if the award of recognition I was given at last year's Caribbean Tales Film Festival for my work is the result of some kind of typecasting, then so be it ... whosoever will may come ...

... by way of introduction ...

... "when man plan, Jah wipe out "... a Rasta tenet articulated by Bob Marley among others ... succinctly affirming the overriding power of the Most High ...

... I have seen this happen ... the way we desire to live our expressive lives can easily differ from the actual output ... the contents of this blog could have appeared in another forum, yet here we are ... the ackeelover thoughtstream ... chronicled for John Public in my own flex and flow ...

... by way of introduction ... I am a curious man with global interests and my experiences as an actor, another outlet for my expressiveness, have helped broaden and hone my perspectives ... more on that in due course ...

... that I was born and raised in Jamaica explains me to some extent and the fact I've spent more of my life in foreign than yard means I'm a hybrid of a sort ... the sort who likes to riff on Coxsone and Basie, Roy Shirley and Muddy Waters, Jimmy Cliff and Al Green ... Lago Como or Key Largo, Prince Charles or Prince Zimboo, Maple Leaf or Ghurka Knife ... the birds and the bees and daggering ... American Idol and Masterpiece Theatre ...

... lately I've been exploring the blogosphere in all its vastness ... film and food blogs, sci-fi blogs, news punditry, erotic writing, even celebrity blogs ... and blogs by others of a recognizable tribe ... Active Voice, Afflicted Yard, Geoffrey Philp ... et al ...

... considering my spinning wanderlust after stepping off the rock you might find your head spinning too as my thoughtstream dances from hitching post to kotch or kimbo ... you could simply dismiss me as "neva-see-come-see"... that could stand some scrutiny but don't waste your time ... jus' watch di ride ... because this narrative is one that embraces the linear and the scatological, the good old days and new-age imperatives, conventional and random wisdoms ... the spiritual and the spirited ...

... to di worl'! ...