Actor Still
Blossoming
Callum
Keith Rennie insists he only looks like the busiest actor in Canada. In a decade
of working in showbusiness, Rennie has appeared in more than 50 feature films
and TV shows.
�I don�t take everything that�s
offered to me, but there�s plenty of jobs to go around if you�re willing to
pursue them,� says Rennie, adding, �but I like my career and I am happy with the
way it has worked out.�
Rennie was born in England, raised in Edmonton and educated in Calgary and
Victoria.
He has appeared in such films as Memento and on such series as Due South but
it�s his dedication to small independent films that has made him one of the most
respected Canadian actors of his generation.
He popped in from his home in Vancouver for the festival presentation of the
powerful family drama Flower & Garnet which screens Oct. 4 at the Globe 2
Cinema at 9 p.m.
In Flower & Garnet, Rennie plays a man so devastated by his wife�s death
that he alienates himself from his daughter and son. Eight years after her death
giving birth to their son, he is forced to deal with more tragedies that his
emotional absence has caused.
He has nothing but praise for Jane McGregor and Colin Roberts who play his
children and for director Keith Behrman who he says �had a really delicate hand
when it came to working with these young actors yet he never condescended to
them which explains why he got the performances he did.�
For his part, Rennie says he �stayed his distance� from McGregor and Roberts.
�That was the relationship my character has with them and I thought it was
important I have the same kind of relationship.
�A film like Flower & Garnet can be as emotionally wrenching for the
actors while filming as it is for audiences as they watch the story unfold. Your
emotions definitely get pushed and pulled. At certain times your own personal
experiences resurface. I pretended I could just wash it all away at the end of
each day but often it was just pretending. Things lingered.�
One thing that has not lingered and for which Rennie has no regrets is a
decision he made in his first year as a struggling Vancouver actor.
He turned down the role of Alex Krycek on The X-Files.
�I didn�t have any money back then, but the offer they made me wasn�t fair. I
refuse to have regrets. It�s the same as with a relationship that doesn�t work
out. You move on forget about it.�
by Louis B. Hobson, Calgary Sun, October 3, 2002