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DUE SOUTH GETS ITS DUE
by Mark Leiren-Young
When I walk into the trailer to meet Due South star Paul Gross, he's twirling a .38 revolver and practising his quick draw. Talk about taking control of an interview. "We're looking at doing a western, so we actually have to carry the guns around and practice," explains Gross as he pulls the gun, cocks it and aims it at the door.
Despite how smooth his draw looks, he's still practising because he wants to make sure that when he does pull a gun as Constable Benton Fraser, he does so properly. After all, the show's executive producer is a perfectionist who will settle for nothing less. Paul Gross is the executive producer.
The day before, Gross spent over an hour dangling from a harness 32 stories above the streets of Toronto. "It's peculiar," he says, explaining the sensation. "You know intellectually that the cable you're attached to, the harness, could hold a car but everything in your body every single physical instinct you have -- is back up, back up, back up!" As he stared down at the tiny cars below him, Gross found himself wondering what he'd have time to think about if the cable snapped. His thought: "Mental note -- next time, let stunt man do it."
He and his new co-star, Callum Keith Rennie, who plays detective Stanley Raymond Kowalski, also learned to scuba dive for some recent underwater sequences. "We do a lot of [stunt] stuff in the show partly for time," says Gross. "And it just looks better. To actually have the actor in the situation is certainly more effective."
When he's not acting, performing stunts or producing the series about a Mountie fighting crime in the wilds of Chicago, Gross is one of the series's head writers, turning out scripts for six of the 26 new episodes. He also has a new country CD, is writing several screenplays, is happily married with two young children and probably leaps tall buildings in a single bound.
Since Due South made history as the first Canadian-produced series to win a prime-time spot on a U.S. network, Gross has become a pop culture icon (not to mention an international heartthrob). Although the series was reasonably successful at drawing viewers to CBS -- despite an ever-changing timeslot -- it was an undisputed phenomenon in Canada, winning both critical acclaim and the best ratings ever received by a Canadian drama. In some respects, Due South and Gross achieved success in the traditional Canadian way: they were a hit in the States. But the twist was that Gross and the series became American darlings without ever leaving Canadian soil.
The love affair with CBS, however, didn't last. The network cancelled the show but CTV and Alliance (the Canadian company that produces the series) kept it alive. Then, in response to a deluge of fan mail, CBS revived it. Then pulled the plug again.
"We were completely dead in the water," says Gross. "The crew disbanded and had gone on to different things. They'd even torn down sets, They'd sawed up my apartment and put it in the garbage. David (Marciano, his former co-star) had gone down to the States and signed a development deal with CBS, and I was writing a couple of different features." Then he got a call from Alliance boss Robert Lantos. It seemed the Europeans wanted the Mountie back. Suddenly, CBS had been replaced by the BBC and Germany's ProSieben Media AG. Then the series was licensed to Polygram in the U.S. for syndication. Says Gross, "It's a weirdly democratic system, television. Though it seems to be run by tyrants, a broad swell of audience support makes a big difference."
Gross has a few theories about why the show has so much appeal beyond our borders. "I would like to think that a big part of it is the show has a sort of genuine heart at its optimistic centre. So much of TV is very cynical these days and I think it's maybe a refreshing change. I think, internationally, it's really hard to gauge the impact of the symbol of a Mountie because it calls up -- particularly in Europe -- that wilderness. And I think it makes them feel nostalgic for a time when things weren't crowded, for the New World and bears and mountains." His other theory. "I think people in England and Germany sort of get a kick out of making fun of the United States."
I remind Gross I interviewed him in the first season and he pulls the gun, aims it at me and smiles wickedly. I then inform him it was a nice story and the gun disappears into the holster. What I'm most curious about has to do with the question I asked then about whether he was thinking of writing any episodes. After all, he is an award-winning screenwriter and playwright. At the time, he said there weren't enough hours in the day. Now he's running the entire show. What changed?
"There is still not enough time," says Gross. "The show's just a little bit more settled and more efficient this year. It's still an awful lot of work and I would never do this again. At least I would not executive produce and play a part where I'm in it every single day and in practically every scene. It makes for a very long day."
"The lunatic," as Gross refers to his co-star, is also practising his quick draw and laughs at the nickname. "I'm an entertainer," he offers by way of explanation. Whatever. One of Rennie's most high-profile roles was in the movie Hard Core Logo and, in a book about the film, screenwriter Noel Baker suggested this was an actor with an eye towards creating a star image. I mention this and for the seeond time in less than an hour I'm staring down the barrel of a .38. He asks me to elaborate and I reassure myself that the gun isn't loaded. Probably.
I explain that rumor has it he didn't exactly jump at a role most Canadian actors would have happily used a .38 to get. And the gun disappears. "I actually just didn't think I'd be right for it. You can make money doing stuff but if you don't think it's going to be satisfying it's not a great place to be when you start working."
He and Gross both claim that when they met in a bar to discuss the job, Rennie had to be convinced to come onboard. Ultimately, they let the fates decide. "Any major decision should be made either by throwing balled up paper into garbage cans or tossing coins," says Rennie with a laugh. "We tossed the coins and the show lost." So how's it fitting? "Perfectly," he says.
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